Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution geared towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics, and Reverse Engineering.
It was developed by Mati Aharoni and Devon Kearns of Offensive Security through the rewrite of BackTrack. BackTrack was their previous information security Operating System. The first iteration of Kali Linux was Kali 1.0.0 was introduced in March 2013.
Offensive Security currently funds and supports Kali Linux. If you were to visit Kali's website today (www.kali.org), you would see a large banner stating, "Our Most Advanced Penetration Testing Distribution, Ever". A very bold statement that ironically has yet to be disproven.
Kali Linux has over 600+ preinstalled penetration-testing applications to discover. Each program with its unique flexibility and use case. Kali Linux does an excellent job of separating these useful utilities into the following categories:
- Information gathering: This category contains several tools that can be used to gather information about DNS, IDS/IPS, network scanning, operating systems, routing, SSL, SMB, VPN, voice-over IP, SNMP, email addresses, and VPN.
- Vulnerability assessment: In this category, you can find tools to scan vulnerabilities in general. It also contains tools to assess the Cisco network and tools to assess vulnerabilities in several database servers. This category also includes several fuzzing tools.
- Web applications: This category contains tools related to web applications such as the content management system scanner, database exploitation, web application fuzzes, web application proxies, web crawlers, and web vulnerability scanners.
- Database assessment: Tools in this category test the security of a variety of databases. There are a number of tools designed specifically to test SQL databases.
- Password attacks: In this category, you will find several tools that can be used to perform password attacks, online or offline.
- Wireless attacks: Testing wireless security is becoming more and more common. This category includes tools to attack Bluetooth, RFID/NFC, and wireless devices.
- Exploitation tools: This category contains tools that can be used to exploit the vulnerabilities found in the target environment. You can find exploitation tools for the network, web, and databases. There are also tools to perform social engineering attacks and find exploit information.
- Sniffing and spoofing: Tools in this category can be used to sniff the network and web traffic. This category also includes network spoofing tools such as Ettercap and Yersinia.
- Post exploitation: Tools in this category will be able to help you maintain access to the target machine. You might need to get the highest privilege level in the machine before you can install tools in this category. Here, you can find tools for backdooring the operating system and web applications. You can also find tools for tunneling.
- Forensics: This category contains tools to perform digital forensic acquisitions, data recovery, incident response, and file carving.
- Reporting tools: In this category, you will find tools that help you document the penetration testing process and results.
- Social engineering tools: This category contains the very powerful Maltego and Social Engineering Toolkit (SET), among others, which are very useful in the reconnaissance and exploitation phases of penetration testing.
- System services: This category contains several services that can be useful during the penetration testing task, such as the Apache service, MySQL service, SSH service, and Metasploit service.
To simplify the life of a penetration tester, Kali Linux has provided us with a category called Top 10 Security Tools. As its name implies, these are the top 10 security tools most commonly used by penetration testers. The tools included in this category are aircrackng, burp-suite, hydra, john, maltego, Metasploit, nmap, sqlmap, Wireshark, and zaproxy.
Besides containing tools that can be used for penetration testing tasks, Kali Linux also comes with several tools that you can use for the following:
- Reverse engineering: This category contains tools that can be used to debug a program or disassemble an executable file.
- Stress testing: This category contains tools that can be used to help you in stress testing your network, wireless, web, and VOIP environment.
- Hardware hacking: Tools in this category can be used if you want to work with Android and Arduino applications.
- Forensics: Tools in this category can be used for a variety of digital forensic tasks.
This includes imaging disks, analyzing memory images, and file carving. One of the best forensic tools that are available with Kali Linux is Volatility. This command-line tool has a number of features for analyzing memory images.
There are also several GUI tools available such as Autopsy and Guymager and also Xplico, which have been fixed.
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Note: |
Who uses Kali Linux and Why?Kali Linux is truly a unique operating
system, as it's one of the few platforms openly used by both good guys and
bad guys. Security Administrators, and Black Hat Hackers both
use this operating system extensively. One to detect and prevent security
breaches, and the other to identify and possibly exploit security breaches.
The number of tools configured and preinstalled on the operating system
makes Kali Linux the Swiss Army knife in any security professional's
toolbox. |
Professionals that use Kali Linux
- Security Administrators – Security Administrators are responsible for safeguarding their institution's information and data. They use Kali Linux to review their environment(s) and ensure there are no easily discoverable vulnerabilities.
- Network Administrators – Network Administrators are responsible for maintaining an efficient and secure network. They use Kali Linux to audit their network. For example, Kali Linux has the ability to detect rogue access points.
- Network Architects – Network Architects, are responsible for designing secure network environments. They utilize Kali Linux to audit their initial designs and ensure nothing was overlooked or misconfigured.
- Pen Testers – Pen Testers, utilize Kali Linux to audit environments and perform reconnaissance on corporate environments which they have been hired to review.
- CISO – CISO or Chief Information Security Officers, use Kali Linux to internally audit their environment and discover if any new applications or rouge configurations have been put in place.
- Forensic Engineers – Kali Linux possesses a "Forensic Mode", which allows a Forensic Engineer to perform data discovery and recovery in some instances.
- White Hat Hackers – White Hat Hackers, similar to Pen Testers use Kali Linux to audit and discover vulnerabilities that may be present in an environment.
- Black Hat Hackers – Black Hat Hackers, utilize Kali Linux to discover and exploit vulnerabilities. Kali Linux also has numerous social engineering applications, which can be utilized by a Black Hat Hacker to compromise an organization or individual.
- Grey Hat Hackers – Grey Hat Hackers, lie in between White Hat and Black Hat Hackers. They will utilize Kali Linux in the same methods as the two listed above.
- Computer Enthusiast – Computer Enthusiast is a pretty generic term, but anyone interested in learning more about networking or computers, in general, can use Kali Linux to learn more about Information Technology, networking, and common vulnerabilities.
Now, you have a basic idea of what Kali Linux is and why it is used, it’s time to run Kali on our virtual machine, or from Live USB Persistence, and get things going.
