Browserify versions 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 are minor iterations of a powerful tool that lets developers write Node.js-style modules that run in the browser. Both versions share the same core functionality, enabling the use of require() to organize JavaScript code for front-end development. They include identical dependencies such as through, duplexer, inherits, optimist, JSONStream, module-deps, shell-quote, browser-pack, syntax-error, browser-resolve, and insert-module-globals, ensuring consistent behavior in module resolution and dependency management.
The included developer dependencies also remain consistent between the two versions and include seq, tap, dnode, mkdirp, backbone, and coffee-script, tools commonly used for testing, automation, and enhancing the development workflow. The license, repository details, and author information also remain unchanged, indicating a continuity in project governance and maintenance.
The primary distinction lies in the release date, with version 2.4.2 being released on March 5, 2013, a couple days after version 2.4.1 on March 3, 2013. While specific changelogs aren't provided, the quick release of 2.4.2 suggests that it likely contains minor bug fixes, performance improvements, or perhaps small feature enhancements over 2.4.1. For developers, upgrading from 2.4.1 to 2.4.2 is generally recommended to benefit from the latest refinements and ensure optimal stability. Both versions are valuable for building modular browser applications, but users may want to prefer the newest one.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 2.4.2 of the package
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.
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 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.