Distros of ethical hacking are gaining great popularity among more advanced users as they allow them to have up-to-date, safe and prepared systems to carry out all types of security tests and audits. Thanks to the fact that Linux is an open and free system, in the network we can find a great variety of these distros, each one with characteristics and tools that differentiate it from the others. And in this article we will talk about one of the best known and loved by the community: Kali Linux.
Kali Linux is one of the most popular and widely used ethical hacking distros worldwide. This distro is based on Debian and maintained by Offensive Security Ltd. Although it is not one of the most complete in terms of number of programs, its developers ensure that there are no repeated tools (as in other similar distros), in addition to offering Always the latest versions of this distro.
Kali Linux features
This ethical hacking distro is based on Debian. This means that users who opt for it will have a known base and excellent support and maintenance. Personalization is also one of the strengths of this alternative, as well as the possibility of using it in the language we want.
Within Kali we can find a total of 600 hacking and security applications , among which we can highlight:
- Nmap: software for scanning ports, useful for searching vulnerabilities and attack points.
- Wireshark: tool to analyze all network traffic, capture and inject packets.
- John the Ripper : program to break passwords, both by brute force and through weaknesses.
- Aircrack-ng : software to measure the security of a Wi-Fi network and steal passwords.
- THC Hydra : program to carry out brute force attacks on different protocols, such as telnet, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS and SMB.
- Nessus: software for remote scanning of networks and systems, to look for vulnerabilities.
- Metasploit: public exploit kit to exploit vulnerabilities in computers.
The Kali Linux Kernel is also patched and ready to perform injections. In addition, it has a wide variety of drivers so that any wireless card can work.
Differences with Parrot OS
Parrot OS is another similar distro for security audits. And, for many, it is Kali’s main rival. The main difference of Kali Linux with its rival Parrot OS lies above all the performance and out-of-the-box experience. Kali is much heavier than Parrot, and users without prior knowledge can have serious problems, since it is much more chaotic.
While Parrot OS is focused on an amateur audience, Kali wants to make room for more advanced users.
Kali Linux on the PC and smartphone
One of the main features that Kali Linux offers us is that we can use this distro both on a computer and on a smartphone. For a computer, it is enough to have a computer with an i386 or AMD64 architecture to be able to load and install it without problems. We can also find images for ARM systems , which allows us to convert a micro-computer, such as the Raspberry Pi , into a complete hacking tool. And in addition, we can find images for special equipment, such as several models of Chromebook, CuBox, Odroid and Samsung Galaxy Note.
Kali Linux developers also offer images of an alternative system called Kali NetHunter . This version is specially designed for smartphones, although compatibility is much more limited. We can install it on several models of Nexus smartphones, on the OnePlus One and on several Samsung Galaxy smartphones.
And finally, indicate that we can also have Kali Linux installed in WSL (Windows subsystem for Windows) to run all tools directly from the Windows 10 console.
Minimum requirements
Due to the large number of architectures and systems for which Kali Linux is available , the requirements have been very tight so that no user can have problems.
To make it work on a PC, the first thing we need is an i386, amd64 or ARM processor (ARMEL or ARMHF) on which to run it. In addition, we will need to have 1 GB of RAM on the PC (although 2 GB is recommended) and 20 GB of hard disk space to install the distro (although we can use it in Live mode).
Of course, we also need a bootable media, either an optical medium (such as a DVD) or a USB stick.
Download Kali Linux
Kali Linux is a distro developed in secure, completely free and open source environments. The latest version of this distro can be found in the following link . Here we can find a wide variety of different editions, from installers for 32 and 64 bits to Live images to use from RAM and images ready to use in virtual machines such as VMware and Virtualbox.
Remember: the default credentials are kali / kali.
Update to the latest version of Kali Linux
It is very important to keep this distro always up to date, since each version corrects faults, improves operation and updates all available tools. Every time there is a new version we can download it for free from its website. And if we already have it installed on our PC, we can update directly to the latest version by running on a terminal:
sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade -y
If the wizard tells us that there are already packages that have been installed automatically and are not necessary, we must remove them by running:
sudo apt autoremove
We run the update command again. We confirm the update message and wait for the entire system to download and update our Kali Linux distro. When finished, restart the PC and, when it starts, we will be using the latest version.
We can check it by executing the command: “grep VERSION / etc / os-release”, since it will return VERSION = “2020.1” and VERSION_ID = “2020.1”, assuming we have the first version of 2020.
