Browserify is a powerful tool for developers seeking to bring Node.js-style modules to the browser. Comparing versions 2.17.4 and 2.18.0 reveals subtle but potentially impactful changes. Both versions share the same core purpose: enabling require() in browser environments, streamlining JavaScript project development. Key dependencies remain consistent, including umd, through, duplexer, inherits, optimist, JSONStream, module-deps, shell-quote, browser-pack, syntax-error, concat-stream, and insert-module-globals, highlighting the stability of Browserify's foundational architecture. The development dependencies like seq, tap, dnode, mkdirp, backbone, and coffee-script are also identical, showcasing a continuous refinement of the testing and build process.
The most notable difference lies in the browser-resolve dependency. Version 2.17.4 relies on browser-resolve version ~0.1.1, while 2.18.0 upgrades to ~1.0.1. This substantial version jump in browser-resolve likely introduces significant features, bug fixes, and performance improvements related to module resolution within the browser environment. Another difference is the introduction of browser-builtins as a dependency in version 2.18.0, whereas it did not exist in 2.17.4. This introduction likely provides a consistent and standardized approach to handling built-in modules. Developers should investigate the changelog for browser-resolve version 1.0.1 to fully understand the implications of this update and assess how it might impact their Browserify-based projects. Furthermore the upgrade could improve how Browserify handles dependencies in some edge cases and reduce the final bundle size.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 2.18.0 of the package
Incorrect Handling of Non-Boolean Comparisons During Minification in uglify-js
Versions of uglify-js prior to 2.4.24 are affected by a vulnerability which may cause crafted JavaScript to have altered functionality after minification.
Upgrade UglifyJS to version >= 2.4.24.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in uglify-js
Versions of uglify-js prior to 2.6.0 are affected by a regular expression denial of service vulnerability when malicious inputs are passed into the parse() method.
var u = require('uglify-js');
var genstr = function (len, chr) {
var result = "";
for (i=0; i<=len; i++) {
result = result + chr;
}
return result;
}
u.parse("var a = " + genstr(process.argv[2], "1") + ".1ee7;");
$ time node test.js 10000
real 0m1.091s
user 0m1.047s
sys 0m0.039s
$ time node test.js 80000
real 0m6.486s
user 0m6.229s
sys 0m0.094s
Update to version 2.6.0 or later.
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.
Potential for Script Injection in syntax-error
Versions of syntax-error prior to 1.1.1 are affected by a cross-site scripting vulnerability which may allow a malicious file to execute code when browserified.
Update to version 1.1.1 or later.