ts-loader, a TypeScript loader for webpack, released version 4.3.0 as an incremental update following version 4.2.0. Both versions share core dependencies like chalk, semver, micromatch, loader-utils, and enhanced-resolve, ensuring consistent handling of console styling, version management, globbing patterns, webpack loader utilities, and module resolution. The development dependencies also remain largely the same, indicating a similar testing and build environment with tools like glob, babel, husky, karma, mocha, webpack, and typescript alongside their associated plugins and type definitions.
Key differences between the versions appear in the dist object. Version 4.3.0 has a smaller unpacked size (379735 bytes) and fewer files (24) in the tarball compared to version 4.2.0 (554781 bytes and 25 files). This potentially indicates optimizations in the codebase, such as improved code splitting, reduced asset size, or removal of unnecessary files. The release dates also show a one-month gap, with version 4.3.0 arriving in May 2018.
For developers, opting for the newer version 4.3.0 may offer performance improvements and a leaner package size reducing install times and potentially improving webpack build times. While the core functionalities and supported frameworks remain the same as indicated by the shared dependency versions, the newer version's optimizations might be compelling for performance-sensitive projects. Therefore, upgrading would likely be a worthwhile endeavor for users already leveraging ts-loader, especially if addressing performance bottlenecks.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 4.3.0 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.
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.
