Expect, a crucial component of the Jest testing framework, empowers developers with robust assertion capabilities for ensuring code correctness. Version 23.1.0 introduces subtle yet important changes compared to its predecessor, version 23.0.1. While the core functionality remains consistent – providing the expect function for writing expressive tests documented extensively on Jest's website – examining the dependency updates reveals the key areas of improvement.
The most prominent difference lies in the updated jest-message-util dependency, moving from version 23.0.0 in 23.0.1 to 23.1.0 in 23.1.0. This suggests potential enhancements or bug fixes within the message formatting and utility functions used by expect to generate informative error messages when assertions fail. Developers may experience more descriptive and helpful feedback during test failures, streamlining the debugging process. Another small change is the increased unpackedSize from 569321 to 569459, suggesting some internal changes, even if very minimal.
The other dependencies – jest-diff, ansi-styles, jest-get-type, jest-regex-util, and jest-matcher-utils – remain at the same versions as in 23.0.1, indicating that the updates primarily focus on refinements related to message generation and potentially some internal refactoring. While the API exposed to developers remains generally the same, upgrading to 23.1.0 is recommended to benefit from the improved error reporting and possible bug fixes contained within the updated dependency, leading to a smoother testing experience and more reliable feedback loop in Jest.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 23.1.0 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) in micromatch
The NPM package micromatch prior to version 4.0.8 is vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS). The vulnerability occurs in micromatch.braces() in index.js because the pattern .* will greedily match anything. By passing a malicious payload, the pattern matching will keep backtracking to the input while it doesn't find the closing bracket. As the input size increases, the consumption time will also increase until it causes the application to hang or slow down. There was a merged fix but further testing shows the issue persisted prior to https://github.com/micromatch/micromatch/pull/266. This issue should be mitigated by using a safe pattern that won't start backtracking the regular expression due to greedy matching.
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.
