Webpack version 4.41.6 is a minor release following 4.41.5, primarily focusing on incremental improvements and bug fixes within the existing v4 ecosystem. Both versions serve the core purpose of bundling JavaScript and other assets for browser deployment, offering features like code splitting, loader support for various file types (CSS, JSX, JSON), and optimization capabilities. Developers familiar with webpack v4 will find the upgrade straightforward.
A key aspect of both releases is their extensive dependency list, which reflects webpack's comprehensive functionality. Both versions share the same dependencies and devDependencies. The primary difference lies in the dist section with unpacked size where version 4.41.6 presents a size of 1465431 and the version 4.41.5 is 1463888 which means it is only a difference of 1543 bytes. This indicates a very small adjustment of the source code and it is not a relevant upgrade.
For developers already using webpack 4.x, migrating to 4.41.6 should be seamless, ensuring compatibility with existing configurations and loaders. These versions are well-suited for projects seeking a stable and mature module bundler with a rich plugin ecosystem and wide community support. Developers should review the changelog for detailed insights into specific bug fixes and minor enhancements included in the 4.41.6 release to determine if the upgrade is beneficial for their particular use case. The release dates highlight the ongoing maintenance and support provided for the webpack v4 series.
All the vulnerabilities related to the version 4.41.6 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.
