Kali Linux is a

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

-derived

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading on ...

designed for

digital forensics Digital forensics (sometimes known as digital forensic science) is a branch of forensic science encompassing the recovery, investigation, examination and analysis of material found in digital devices, often in relation to mobile devices and comp ...

and

penetration test A penetration test, colloquially known as a pen test or ethical hacking, is an authorized simulated cyberattack on a computer system, performed to evaluate the security of the system; this is not to be confused with a vulnerability assessment. ...

ing. It is maintained and funded by

Offensive Security Offensive Security is an American international company working in information security, penetration testing and digital forensics. Operating from around 2007, the company created open source projects, advanced security courses, the ExploitDB ...

. Kali Linux has around 600 penetration-testing programs (tools), including Armitage (a graphical cyber attack management tool),

Nmap Nmap (Network Mapper) is a network scanner created by Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym ''Fyodor Vaskovich''). Nmap is used to discover hosts and services on a computer network by sending packets and analyzing the responses. Nmap prov ...

(a port scanner), Wireshark (a

packet analyzer A packet analyzer, also known as packet sniffer, protocol analyzer, or network analyzer, is a computer program or computer hardware such as a packet capture appliance, that can intercept and log traffic that passes over a computer network or ...

), metasploit (penetration testing framework),

John the Ripper John the Ripper is a free password cracking software tool. Originally developed for the Unix operating system, it can run on fifteen different platforms (eleven of which are architecture-specific versions of Unix, DOS, Win32, BeOS, and OpenVM ...

password cracker In cryptanalysis and computer security, password cracking is the process of recovering passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system in scrambled form. A common approach (brute-force attack) is to repeatedly try ...

), sqlmap (automatic

SQL injection In computing, SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution (e.g. to dump the database contents to the attacker). SQL inj ...

and

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

takeover tool),

Aircrack-ng Aircrack-ng is a network software suite consisting of a detector, packet sniffer, WEP and WPA/ WPA2-PSK cracker and analysis tool for 802.11 wireless LANs. It works with any wireless network interface controller whose driver supports raw mon ...

software suite A software suite (also known as an application suite) is a collection of computer programs (application software, or programming software) of related functionality, sharing a similar user interface and the ability to easily exchange data with eac ...

for penetration-testing

wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building ...

s), Burp suite and

OWASP ZAP OWASP ZAP (short for Zed Attack Proxy) is an open-source web application security scanner. It is intended to be used by both those new to application security as well as professional penetration testers. It is one of the most active Open Web App ...

web application security scanners, etc. It was developed by Mati Aharoni and Devon Kearns of Offensive Security through the rewrite of BackTrack, their previous information security testing Linux distribution based on

Knoppix KNOPPIX ( ) is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD / DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB), one of the first live operating system distributions (just after Yggdrasil Linux). Knoppix was developed b ...

. The name was inspired by the Hindu goddess

Kali Kali (; sa, काली, ), also referred to as Mahakali, Bhadrakali, and Kalika ( sa, कालिका), is a Hindu goddess who is considered to be the goddess of ultimate power, time, destruction and change in Shaktism. In this trad ...

. Kali Linux is based on the Debian ''Testing'' branch. Most packages Kali uses are imported from the Debian repositories. Kali Linux's popularity grew when it was featured in multiple episodes of the TV series '' Mr. Robot''. Tools highlighted in the show and provided by Kali Linux include Bluesniff, Bluetooth Scanner (btscanner), John the Ripper, Metasploit Framework, Nmap, Shellshock, and Wget. The tagline of Kali Linux and BackTrack is "the quieter you become, the more you are able to hear", which is displayed on some backgrounds.

Version history

The first version, 1.0.0 "moto", was released in March 2013. With version 2019.4 in November 2019, the default user interface was switched from GNOME to Xfce, with a GNOME version still available. With version 2020.3 in August 2020, the default shell was switched from Bash to ZSH, with Bash remaining as an option.

Requirements

Kali Linux requires: *A minimum of 20GB hard disk space for installation depending on the version, Version 2020.2 requires at least 20GB. *A minimum of 2GB RAM for i386 and AMD64 architectures. *A bootable CD-DVD drive or a USB stick. *A minimum of an Intel Core i3 or an AMD E1 processor for good performance. The recommended hardware specification for a smooth experience are: * 50 GB of hard disk space,

SSD A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is ...

preferred *At least 2GB of RAM

Supported platforms

Kali Linux is distributed in

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calcula ...

and

64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A comp ...

images for use on hosts based on the x86

instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called a ...

and as an image for the

ARM architecture ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configure ...

for use on the Beagle Board computer and Samsung's ARM Chromebook. The developers of Kali Linux aim to make Kali Linux available for even more ARM devices. Kali Linux is already available for Asus Chromebook Flip C100P, BeagleBone Black, HP Chromebook, CubieBoard 2, CuBox, CuBox-i,

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

, EfikaMX, Odroid U2, Odroid XU, Odroid XU3, Samsung Chromebook, Utilite Pro, Galaxy Note 10.1, and SS808. With the arrival of Kali NetHunter, Kali Linux is also officially available on Android devices such as the Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7, Nexus 9, Nexus 10, OnePlus One, and some Samsung Galaxy models. It has also been made available for more Android devices through unofficial community builds. Kali Linux is available on

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

, on top of

Windows Subsystem for Linux Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

(WSL). The official Kali distribution for Windows can be downloaded from the

Microsoft Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform ...

Features

Kali Linux has a dedicated project set aside for compatibility and porting to specific Android devices, called Kali NetHunter. It is the first open source Android penetration testing platform for Nexus devices, created as a joint effort between the Kali community member "BinkyBear" and Offensive Security. It supports Wireless 802.11 frame injection, one-click MANA Evil Access Point setups, HID keyboard (Teensy like attacks), as well as Bad USB MITM attacks. BackTrack (Kali's predecessor) contained a mode known as forensic mode, which was carried over to Kali via live boot. This mode is very popular for many reasons, partly because many Kali users already have a bootable Kali USB drive or CD, and this option makes it easy to apply Kali to a forensic job. When booted in forensic mode, the system doesn't touch the internal hard drive or swap space and auto mounting is disabled. However, the developers recommend that users test these features extensively before using Kali for real world forensics.

Comparison with other Linux distributions

Kali Linux is developed with a focus towards cyber security experts, penetration testers, and white-hat hackers. There are a few other distributions dedicated to penetration testing, such as Parrot OS, BlackArch, an
Wifislax
. Kali Linux has stood out against these other distributions for cyber security and penetration testing, as well as having features such as the default user being the

superuser In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of th ...

in the Kali Live Environment.

Tools

Kali Linux includes security tools, such as: *

Autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any dis ...

* Armitage * Burp suite * BeEF * Cisco Global Exploiter * Ettercap * Hashcat *

* Kismet *

Lynis Lynis is an extensible security audit tool for computer systems running Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, OpenBSD, Solaris, and other Unix derivatives. It assists system administrators and security professionals with scanning a system and its security defe ...

* Maltego * Metasploit framework *

* Nikto *

Social engineering Social engineering may refer to: * Social engineering (political science), a means of influencing particular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale * Social engineering (security), obtaining confidential information by manipulating and/or ...

tools *Sqlmap * Wireshark * WPScan * Nessus * Zenmap *

Hydra Hydra generally refers to: * Lernaean Hydra, a many-headed serpent in Greek mythology * ''Hydra'' (genus), a genus of simple freshwater animals belonging to the phylum Cnidaria Hydra or The Hydra may also refer to: Astronomy * Hydra (constel ...

* Reverse engineering toolkit * Foremost * Volatility * VulnHub These tools can be used for a number of purposes, most of which involve exploiting a victim network or application, performing network discovery, or scanning a target IP address. Many tools from the previous version ( BackTrack) were eliminated to focus on the most popular and effective penetration testing applications. Offensive Security provides a book, ''Kali Linux Revealed'', and makes it available for free download.

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control ARM operating systems Debian-based distributions Digital forensics software Linux distributions Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Pentesting software toolkits Rolling Release Linux distributions X86-64 Linux distributions