Ts-loader is a TypeScript loader for webpack, streamlining the integration of TypeScript into webpack-based projects. Comparing versions 5.4.3 and 5.3.3 reveals subtle yet relevant changes for developers. Both share identical dependencies, including chalk, semver, micromatch, loader-utils, and enhanced-resolve, crucial for internal operations like handling console output, managing version compatibility, matching file patterns, and resolving module paths. Similarly, their devDependencies are the same, indicating a consistent testing and development environment leveraging tools like webpack, typescript, tslint, karma, and Babel for tasks such as bundling, type checking, linting, and testing.
The core difference lies in the distribution metadata. Version 5.4.3 clocked in at 31 files and an unpacked size of 344577 bytes, while version 5.3.3 contained 38 files and an unpacked size of 355308 bytes. It suggests potential code refactoring, optimization, or file consolidation between releases. The 5.4.3 version release date is April 22, 2019, significantly newer than the 5.3.3 version release date on January 5, 2019. Developers considering upgrading should note that while functionalities and dependencies appear stable, internal adjustments might impact performance or bundled output size. As Typescript and Webpack are evolving technologies, using always the latest version would provide up-to-date features, improvements and bug fixes.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 5.4.3 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.
