node.js - How to fix npm vulnerabilities manually?

Question

When I run npm install it says found 33 vulnerabilities (2 low, 31 moderate) run `npm audit fix` to fix them, or `npm audit` for details.

However, npm audit fix outputs up to date in 11s fixed 0 of 33 vulnerabilities in 24653 scanned packages 33 vulnerabilities required manual review and could not be updated

Does that review mean it is not supposed to be fixed by user?

When I run npm audit it gives me list of tables, similar to this:

┌───────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Low           │ Prototype Pollution                                          │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Package       │ lodash                                                       │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Patched in    │ >=4.17.5                                                     │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Dependency of │ browser-sync [dev]                                           │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Path          │ browser-sync > easy-extender > lodash                        │
├───────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ More info     │ https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/577                       │
└───────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

In this example remediation section of linked page says Update to version 4.17.5 or later.. However, in /node_modules/browser-sync/package.json there are lines:

"devDependencies": {
    "lodash-cli": "4.17.5",
}

and no more lodash dependencies. So it should already be v4.17.5. I also checked /node_modules/lodash/lodash.json which has var VERSION = '4.17.10'; line. In /node_modules/lodash/package.json there are these lines:

  "_from": "lodash@^4.17.4",
  "_id": "lodash@4.17.10",

I believe that version shown in "_id", not in "_from", so versions are correct but vulnerability still appear in audit list.

I'm still new in node.js and those messages confuses me a lot. Is there any way to fix it manually or get rid of those messages, I can't do anything with?

Answer 1

lodash-cli in devDependencies doesn't affect how browser-sync works in your project, devDependencies are ignored when a package is installed as a dependency.

What audit report says is that it's easy-extender that has lodash dependency:

browser-sync > easy-extender > lodash        

It depends on Lodash 3, while the problem was fixed in Lodash 4. The problem could be fixed by forking easy-extender, updating it and installing it instead of the package from NPM public registry. But there is no real problem with this dependency.

audit report importance should be evaluated manually. Even if nested dependency has security risk, this doesn't mean that a feature that introduces this risk was used. This also doesn't mean that even if it's used, it introduces real risk due to how it's used.

browser-sync is development tool that isn't used in production, there are not so many scenarios where its vulnerabilities could be exploited. And Prototype Pollution isn't a vulnerability at all, just a notice that a package doesn't follow good practices, it can be ignored.

Generally, this is the way to fix reported vulnerabilities:

• Do a sanity check
• In case it's a real problem, check the repository of vulnerable package for existing issues and PRs
• In case there's none, submit an issue
• Fork a repository or use use existing PR as git dependency until it's fixed in NPM release
• In case of nested dependencies, do this at several levels of nesting

Most times it's expected that you won't advance beyond a sanity check.

patch-package can help to patch nested dependencies in-place but this won't affect audit report.