Grunt-cli is the command-line interface for Grunt, the popular JavaScript task runner. Version 1.3.2 was released on November 4, 2018, succeeding version 1.3.1, which was released on August 19, 2018. A key difference lies in the dependency on v8flags. Version 1.3.2 uses v8flags version ~3.1.1, while version 1.3.1 relies on v8flags version ~3.0.2. This indicates a potential update or bug fix within the v8flags dependency that users of grunt-cli might benefit from. The unpacked size of version 1.3.2 is slightly larger, at 10087 bytes, compared to 9947 bytes in version 1.3.1, suggesting minor additions or changes in the newer release.
Both versions share the same core dependencies, including nopt, liftoff, interpret, and grunt-known-options, and the same devDependencies like grunt and grunt-contrib-jshint, ensuring a consistent development experience across these minor releases. The MIT license and repository information remain unchanged, reflecting the project's open-source nature and continued maintenance under the Grunt Development Team. For developers, the update to v8flags in version 1.3.2 is the most notable change. Checking the changelog for v8flags between versions 3.0.2 and 3.1.1 can give more insights about the benefits and if it justifies an upgrade for projects already using version 1.3.1.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 1.3.2 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.
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.
