Braces version 1.8.5 represents a subtle but important upgrade over its predecessor, 1.8.4, in this popular brace expansion library for Node.js, renowned for its speed and comprehensive Bash 4.3 specification support. Analyzing the metadata reveals no changes in core dependencies: preserve, expand-range, and repeat-element remain consistent, indicating a focus on internal refinement rather than architectural shifts. Similarly, the development dependencies, including tools like chalk, mocha, should, minimist, minimatch, benchmarked, gulp-format-md, and brace-expansion, are unchanged.
The key difference lies in the release date: version 1.8.5 was published on May 21, 2016, while 1.8.4 appeared on April 20, 2016. This one-month gap suggests bug fixes, performance enhancements, or minor adjustments to improve stability. While the exact nature of these changes isn't explicitly detailed in the metadata, the update likely targets improvements well suited to production environments, ensuring a more robust and reliable experience. Developers already using braces can likely update knowing the impact is limited. New projects should always use the latest version. For developers relying on brace expansion for file system operations, command-line argument processing, or string manipulation, this incremental upgrade assures continued stability together with any fixes. Check the list of commits to understand the impact.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 1.8.5 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in braces
A vulnerability was found in Braces versions prior to 2.3.1. Affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) attacks.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in braces
Versions of braces prior to 2.3.1 are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). Untrusted input may cause catastrophic backtracking while matching regular expressions. This can cause the application to be unresponsive leading to Denial of Service.
Upgrade to version 2.3.1 or higher.
Uncontrolled resource consumption in braces
The NPM package braces fails to limit the number of characters it can handle, which could lead to Memory Exhaustion. In lib/parse.js, if a malicious user sends "imbalanced braces" as input, the parsing will enter a loop, which will cause the program to start allocating heap memory without freeing it at any moment of the loop. Eventually, the JavaScript heap limit is reached, and the program will crash.
