Browserify is a powerful tool for front-end developers, enabling the use of Node.js-style modules within web browsers. Comparing version 9.0.0 and the previous stable version 8.1.3 reveals key updates. Both share the same core purpose: browser-side require() functionality. They also share a MIT license, the same repository URL, the same author and almost the same description.
Significant dependency upgrades are present in version 9.0.0. Most notably, "resolve" jumps to version 1.1.4 from "~0.7.1", "JSONStream" goes to "~0.10.0" from "~0.8.3", and "module-deps" increments to "^3.7.0" from "^3.6.3". "browser-pack" also gets an update from "^3.2.0" to "^4.0.0". These changes likely bring performance improvements, bug fixes, and potentially new features within those underlying modules. In the "readable-stream" dependency, there is a less significant version upgrade "^1.1.13" from "^1.0.33-1". The prior version includes an "umd" dependency that is totally removed in the latest version.
From a development perspective, these updates suggest improved stability and better handling of complex module dependencies. Developers should assess the impact of the dependency upgrades on their existing projects, ensuring compatibility and taking advantage of any new functionalities. The updates in "resolve" and "module-deps" are particularly interesting, as they directly affect how Browserify handles module resolution and dependency graphs, potentially leading to faster build times and more efficient code bundling. Finally, old versions depends on dnode which is not present in the new version.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 9.0.0 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.