Webpack 4.0.0 represents a significant leap forward from version 3.12.0, bringing performance improvements and developer experience enhancements. Key differences lie within the revamped plugin system and default configurations. Version 4 boasts "zero config" capabilities, meaning simpler setups for common use cases. Developers can often start bundling projects without a webpack.config.js file, reducing initial configuration overhead.
Notable changes include the removal of the CommonsChunkPlugin in favor of optimization.splitChunks, offering more granular control over code splitting. The update to uglifyjs-webpack-plugin and overall dependency upgrades also contribute to build speed improvements for production builds, a welcome upgrade. Several loader dependencies were also updated.
While many familiar loaders like css-loader, file-loader style-loader and less-loader have been updated in their minor/patch versions, others like json-loader have been removed being handled natively. Also extract-text-webpack-plugin was removed. Some dependencies were modified at the engine level (enhanced-resolve) or directly removed (async, json5, yargs, escope, tapable, interpret, source-map, supports-color).
Developers migrating from Webpack 3 should pay close attention to these changes. While Webpack 4 offers simplified setups, understanding the new configuration options is crucial for harnessing its full potential. These changes contribute to smaller bundle sizes, faster build times, and an overall smoother development workflow.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 4.0.0 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.
Regular Expression Denial of Service (ReDoS)
npm ssri 5.2.2-6.0.1 and 7.0.0-8.0.0, processes SRIs using a regular expression which is vulnerable to a denial of service. Malicious SRIs could take an extremely long time to process, leading to denial of service. This issue only affects consumers using the strict option.
Cross-Site Scripting in serialize-javascript
Versions of serialize-javascript prior to 2.1.1 are vulnerable to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). The package fails to sanitize serialized regular expressions. This vulnerability does not affect Node.js applications.
Upgrade to version 2.1.1 or later.
Insecure serialization leading to RCE in serialize-javascript
serialize-javascript prior to 3.1.0 allows remote attackers to inject arbitrary code via the function "deleteFunctions" within "index.js".
An object such as {"foo": /1"/, "bar": "a\"@__R-<UID>-0__@"} was serialized as {"foo": /1"/, "bar": "a\/1"/}, which allows an attacker to escape the bar key. This requires the attacker to control the values of both foo and bar and guess the value of <UID>. The UID has a keyspace of approximately 4 billion making it a realistic network attack.
