For long the aspect of Advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing in computer systems did not have an integrated tool, till the launch of Kali Linux in March 2013. This Debian-based Linux distribution was compiled as a collection of several hundred tools which are useful for various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security research, Computer Forensics, Reverse Engineering, etc. The distribution is free and is based on GNU GPL regime, and is maintained and funded by Offensive Security Ltd. Today, Kali has over integrated 600 tools; it also has a mode known as forensic mode, which was enables 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.
Recently Kali Linux announced the release of version 2020.1. Apart from other new tools, the new release also has also improved upon the ‘NetHunter’ utility, in which the Mobile pentesting platform will no longer require users to root their phone in order to run it.
The company also has been cautious in releasing a version that is not more biased towards hacking and will be more research oriented. Kali 2020.1 will no more have a “superuser account”, and the default user is now a “standard”, unprivileged user. Earlier Kali had the default root policy, and the new version has been designed so due to security reasons. After the change, there is no more “root/toor’ and the user will now be “kali/kali”.
Whats New
Kali Single Installer Image – The Offensive Security team, after having audited the type of images that have been popularly downloaded from the platform; have completely restructured and simplified the images that users will be downloading. From now on there will be an installer image, a live image, and a network installer image, allowing for easier selection of the right image for each user while also increasing flexibility. It will allow the user to select the tools which should be included with the installation. The user will need an internet connection to install a custom image, only Xfce and default packages will not require internet connection.
NetHunter Rootless– The mobile pentesting comes with new improvements; now one does not need to root the phone to run Kali NetHunter: on the device. The “NetHunter Rootless” can be installed on all stock standard and unmodified devices by using Termux. There are few limitations like lack of DB support in Metasploit, and this does not need a rooted device.
New Packages – As we are aware, Kali is a rolling distribution and therefore it allows adding of “next release” as a ‘updating’ effort through user interface. However the new version 2020.1 has catered for addition of certain tools like `cloud-enum`, `emailharvester`, `phpggc`, `sherlock`, `splinter`, etc by default.
Users can download the Kali Linux 2020.1, by clicking on the link (Click Here……)