Browserify, a tool enabling the use of Node.js-style require() statements in browsers, released version 10.1.3 shortly after version 10.1.2, both on May 7th, 2015. While very similar, a subtle change exists within their declared dependencies. Version 10.1.3 uses "JSONStream": "^1.0.3", whereas the previous version, 10.1.2 depends on "jsonstream": "^1.0.3" (lowercase spelling).
For developers, this seemingly minor difference could be crucial. Different filesystems treat filenames and package names differently. These slight variations in casing highlight the challenges Javascript developers sometimes face while attempting to build cross-platform applications. While the intent was likely to use the same popular JSONStream library for streaming JSON data, a case-sensitive file system might cause version 10.1.2 to have difficulties finding and loading the correct package.
Both versions maintain the browserify core functionality, allowing developers to write modular JavaScript code that can be executed in a web browser environment. Using browserify helps organize frontend projects, manage dependencies effectively, and reuse code across both server-side and client-side environments. However developers upgrading should verify if they are on a case sensitive or insensitive filesystem and test to ensure compatibility. Remember to use standard node package installation patterns to prevent such inconsistencies from impacting your build.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 10.1.3 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service in minimatch
Affected versions of minimatch are vulnerable to regular expression denial of service attacks when user input is passed into the pattern argument of minimatch(path, pattern).
var minimatch = require(“minimatch”);
// utility function for generating long strings
var genstr = function (len, chr) {
var result = “”;
for (i=0; i<=len; i++) {
result = result + chr;
}
return result;
}
var exploit = “[!” + genstr(1000000, “\\”) + “A”;
// minimatch exploit.
console.log(“starting minimatch”);
minimatch(“foo”, exploit);
console.log(“finishing minimatch”);
Update to version 3.0.2 or later.
minimatch ReDoS vulnerability
A vulnerability was found in the minimatch package. This flaw allows a Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) when calling the braceExpand function with specific arguments, resulting in a Denial of Service.
Potential Command Injection in shell-quote
Affected versions of shell-quote do not properly escape command line arguments, which may result in command injection if the library is used to escape user input destined for use as command line arguments.
The following characters are not escaped properly: >,;,{,}
Bash has a neat but not well known feature known as "Bash Brace Expansion", wherein a sub-command can be executed without spaces by running it between a set of {} and using the , instead of to seperate arguments. Because of this, full command injection is possible even though it was initially thought to be impossible.
const quote = require('shell-quote').quote;
console.log(quote(['a;{echo,test,123,234}']));
// Actual "a;{echo,test,123,234}"
// Expected "a\;\{echo,test,123,234\}"
// Functional Equivalent "a; echo 'test' '123' '1234'"
Update to version 1.6.1 or later.
Improper Neutralization of Special Elements used in a Command in Shell-quote
The shell-quote package before 1.7.3 for Node.js allows command injection. An attacker can inject unescaped shell metacharacters through a regex designed to support Windows drive letters. If the output of this package is passed to a real shell as a quoted argument to a command with exec(), an attacker can inject arbitrary commands. This is because the Windows drive letter regex character class is [A-z] instead of the correct [A-Za-z]. Several shell metacharacters exist in the space between capital letter Z and lower case letter a, such as the backtick character.