Sass version 1.7.2 represents a subtle but potentially important update over its predecessor, version 1.7.1. Both versions maintain the core functionality of being a pure JavaScript implementation of Sass, making them easily integrable into JavaScript-based projects without relying on native dependencies. This characteristic is a significant advantage for developers seeking cross-platform compatibility and simplified deployment. Both share the same dependencies, notably chokidar for file system watching capabilities, essential for automatically recompiling Sass files upon changes during development. The MIT license ensures freedom in utilizing the library for both personal and commercial purposes.
Looking at the metadata, a key difference lies in the releaseDate. Version 1.7.2 was released on June 27, 2018, two days after version 1.7.1 (June 25, 2018). While the dependencies remained the same, the unpackedSize field in the dist object shows a minor increase of 10 bytes, suggesting a small change in the codebase. This likely indicates bug fixes or minor performance enhancements rather than significant feature additions. Developers upgrading from 1.7.1 should expect a seamless transition, but might benefit from potentially improved stability or efficiency improvements included in version 1.7.2. Always consult the official changelog for a complete understanding of the changes incorporated to leverage the full potential of the library.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 1.7.2 of the package
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.
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.
