Moment.js saw a minor version bump from 2.18.0 to 2.18.1 in March 2017, representing a small but potentially important update for developers relying on this popular date and time manipulation library. Examining the metadata reveals that the core description, license (MIT), repository details, and author information remained consistent between these two versions. The devDependencies also appear identical, which indicates that the toolchain and testing environment used for development weren't significantly altered.
The key difference lies in the version itself and, consequently, the dist.tarball URL, which points to the specific package file on the npm registry. More importantly, the releaseDate reflects that version 2.18.1 was published a few days after 2.18.0. While detailed release notes would be necessary to definitively pinpoint the exact changes, this increment suggests the newer version likely included bug fixes, minor performance improvements, or perhaps addressed a specific edge case discovered in 2.18.0. Developers should always consult the official changelog or release notes for a comprehensive understanding of the changes before upgrading. For those deeply invested in Moment.js, even seemingly small updates can have noticeable impacts on their applications, ensuring proper date handling and consistent behavior. Ignoring patch or minor updates could leave them inadvertently vulnerable to known bugs or missing out on valuable optimizations. Ultimately, the choice to update depends on project needs and the perceived value of addressing potential issues or leveraging minor enhancements.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 2.18.1 of the package
Regular Expression Denial of Service in moment
Affected versions of moment are vulnerable to a low severity regular expression denial of service when parsing dates as strings.
Update to version 2.19.3 or later.
Path Traversal: 'dir/../../filename' in moment.locale
This vulnerability impacts npm (server) users of moment.js, especially if user provided locale string, eg fr is directly used to switch moment locale.
This problem is patched in 2.29.2, and the patch can be applied to all affected versions (from 1.0.1 up until 2.29.1, inclusive).
Sanitize user-provided locale name before passing it to moment.js.
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If you have any questions or comments about this advisory:
Moment.js vulnerable to Inefficient Regular Expression Complexity
The problem is patched in 2.29.4, the patch can be applied to all affected versions with minimal tweaking.
In general, given the proliferation of ReDoS attacks, it makes sense to limit the length of the user input to something sane, like 200 characters or less. I haven't seen legitimate cases of date-time strings longer than that, so all moment users who do pass a user-originating string to constructor are encouraged to apply such a rudimentary filter, that would help with this but also most future ReDoS vulnerabilities.
There is an excellent writeup of the issue here: https://github.com/moment/moment/pull/6015#issuecomment-1152961973=
The issue is rooted in the code that removes legacy comments (stuff inside parenthesis) from strings during rfc2822 parsing. moment("(".repeat(500000)) will take a few minutes to process, which is unacceptable.
