What is backtrack and kali linux

Kali Linux (formerly known as BackTrack Linux) is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. Kali Linux contains several hundred tools targeted towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security Research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering. Kali Linux is a multi platform solution, accessible and freely available to information security professionals and hobbyists.

Kali Linux was released on the 13th March 2013 as a complete, top-to-bottom rebuild of BackTrack Linux, adhering completely to Debian development standards.

Kali Linux Features

More than 600 penetration testing tools included: After reviewing every tool that was included in BackTrack, we eliminated a great number of tools that either simply did not work or which duplicated other tools that provided the same or similar functionality. Details on what’s included are on the Kali Tools site.
Free (as in beer) and always will be: Kali Linux, like BackTrack, is completely free of charge and always will be. You will never, ever have to pay for Kali Linux.
Open source Git tree: We are committed to the open source development model and our development tree is available for all to see. All of the source code which goes into Kali Linux is available for anyone who wants to tweak or rebuild packages to suit their specific needs.
FHS compliant: Kali adheres to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, allowing Linux users to easily locate binaries, support files, libraries, etc.
Wide-ranging wireless device support: A regular sticking point with Linux distributions has been support for wireless interfaces. We have built Kali Linux to support as many wireless devices as we possibly can, allowing it to run properly on a wide variety of hardware and making it compatible with numerous USB and other wireless devices.
Custom kernel, patched for injection: As penetration testers, the development team often needs to do wireless assessments, so our kernel has the latest injection patches included.
Developed in a secure environment: The Kali Linux team is made up of a small group of individuals who are the only ones trusted to commit packages and interact with the repositories, all of which is done using multiple secure protocols.
GPG signed packages and repositories: Every package in Kali Linux is signed by each individual developer who built and committed it, and the repositories subsequently sign the packages as well.
Multi-language support: Although penetration tools tend to be written in English, we have ensured that Kali includes true multilingual support, allowing more users to operate in their native language and locate the tools they need for the job.
Completely customizable: We thoroughly understand that not everyone will agree with our design decisions, so we have made it as easy as possible for our more adventurous users to customize Kali Linux to their liking, all the way down to the kernel.
ARMEL and ARMHF support: Since ARM-based single-board systems like the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black, among others, are becoming more and more prevalent and inexpensive, we knew that Kali’s ARM support would need to be as robust as we could manage, with fully working installations for both ARMEL and ARMHF systems. Kali Linux is available on a wide range of ARM devices and has ARM repositories integrated with the mainline distribution so tools for ARM are updated in conjunction with the rest of the distribution.
For more features of Kali Linux, please see the following page: Kali Linux Overview.

Kali Linux is specifically tailored to the needs of penetration testing professionals, and therefore all documentation on this site assumes prior knowledge of, and familiarity with, the Linux operating system in general. Please see Should I Use Kali Linux? for more details on what makes Kali unique.

Updated on: 2021-Sep-27
Author: g0tmi1k

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BackTrack 5 or Kali Linux 1.0

I get many searches related to BackTrack 5 that makes me wonder if netizens responsible for those searches are aware that the distribution known as BackTrack is old news. If you didn’t and you got here by searching for “backtrack 5,” this article will direct you to the right distribution to use.

BackTrack is/was a specialty Linux distribution for security professionals. It is designed for hacking and penetration testing and is loaded with the best Free and Open Source (FOSS) hacking applications available. The last edition was BackTrack 5 R3 (the R is for Revolution).

After BackTrack 5 R3, the developers decided to retool and revamp their distribution. The result of their effort was released as Kali Linux. So the gist of this article is this: BackTrack is now known as Kali Linux, and if you came to this website searching for information about BackTrack 5 R3, Kali Linux 1.0 is the distribution you should be looking for.

So, aside from upgraded applications and a name change, what’s the real difference between BackTrack and Kali Linux?

The most important differences are these:

1. While BackTrack is based on Ubuntu Desktop and used Ubiquity as the graphical installation program, Kali Linux is based on the latest edition of Debian and uses the Debian Installer (DI).

2. The difference in the graphical installation programs is significant, because with DI comes support for LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager, and full disk encryption. Those are features that you didn’t have with BackTrack’s installer.

3. Another significant difference is that because Ubuntu’s packages are not compatible with Debian packages, upgrading from BackTrack 5 R3 to Kali Linux 1.0 is not recommended. So if you have an installation of any edition of BackTrack 5, you should be prepared to switch to Kali Linux.

4. The last difference worth noting here is this: With BackTrack 5, you had a choice of two desktop environments – KDE and GNOME 2. However, with Kali Linux, you could roll your own desktop environment, aside from the default, which is GNOME 3. So, if Cinnamon, KDE, E17 is your choice, the steps for creating them are easy to follow. For example, see how to build a custom KDE image for Kali Linux.

Several article have already been published on this website about Kali Linux, which you may read here. To download the latest edition of Kali Linux, click here.

This is a screen shot from a test installation of the KDE edition of BackTrack 5.

Here’s one from a test installation of Kali Linux 1.0

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Ethical Hacking using Kali Linux — A Beginner’s Guide To Kali Linux

More often than not, specific operating systems get tied to certain tasks. Anything related to graphics or content creation brings up macOS in our mind. Similarly, any instance of hacking or just generally fiddling around with network utilities is also mapped to a particular operating system and that is Kali Linux. In this article, I’ll be writing a general introduction to Kali Linux and how it can be used for ethical hacking. The following topics are discussed in this write up regarding ‘Ethical Hacking Using Kali Linux’:

What is Kali Linux?
Development of Kali Linux
Why Use Kali Linux?
System Requirements for Kali Linux
List of Tools
Demonstration of Power — aircrack-ng and crunch

What is Kali Linux?

Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution. It is a meticulously crafted OS that specifically caters to the likes of network analysts & penetration testers. The presence of a plethora of tools that come pre-installed with Kali transforms it into an ethical hacker’s swiss-knife. Previously known as Backtrack, Kali Linux advertises itself as a more polished successor with more testing-centric tools, unlike Backtrack which had multiple tools that would serve the same purpose, in turn, making it jampacked with unnecessary utilities. This makes ethical hacking using Kali Linux a simplified task.

Development of Kali Linux

Mati Aharoni and Deavon Kearns are the core developers of Kali Linux. It was a rewrite of Backtrack Linux, which was another penetration testing centric Linux distribution. The development of Kali is set according to the Debian standards as it imports the majority of its code from Debian repositories. The development began in early March 2012, amongst a small group of developers. Only a very selected few developers were allowed to commit packages, that too in a protected environment. Kali Linux came out of development with its first release in 2013. Since then, Kali Linux has been through a number of major updates. The development of these updates is handled by Offensive Security.

Why Use Kali Linux?

There are a wide array of reasons as to why one should use Kali Linux. Let me list down a few of them:

As free as it can get — Kali Linux has been and will always be free to use.
More tools than you could think of — Kali Linux comes with over 600 different penetration testing and security analytics related tool.
Open-source — Kali, being a member of the Linux family, follows the widely appreciated open-source model. Their development tree is publicly viewable on Git and all of the code is available for your tweaking purposes.
Multi-language Support — Although penetration tools tend to be written in English, it has been ensured that Kali includes true multilingual support, allowing more users to operate in their native language and locate the tools they need for the job.
Completely customizable — The developers at offensive security understand that not everyone will agree with their design model, so they have made it as easy as possible for the more adventurous user to customize Kali Linux to their liking, all the way down to the kernel.

System Requirements for Kali Linux

Installing Kali is a piece of cake. All you have to make sure is that you have the compatible hardware. Kali is supported on i386, amd64, and ARM (both ARMEL and ARMHF) platforms. The hardware requirements are minimal as listed below, although better hardware will naturally provide better performance.

A minimum of 20 GB disk space for the Kali Linux install.
RAM for i386 and amd64 architectures, minimum: 1GB, recommended: 2GB or more.
CD-DVD Drive / USB boot support/ VirtualBox

List of Tools

Below is a list of tools that come pre-installed for ethical hacking using Kali Linux. This list is by no means expansive as Kali has a plethora of tools, all of which cannot be listed and explained in one article.

Aircrack-ng

Aircrack-ng is a suite of tools used to assess WiFi network security. It focuses on key areas of WiFi security:

Monitoring: Packet capture and export of data to text files for further processing by third-party tools.
Attacking: Replay attacks, de-authentication, fake access points, and others via packet injection.
Testing: Checking WiFi cards and driver capabilities (capture and injection).
Cracking: WEP and WPA PSK (WPA 1 and 2).

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All tools are command line which allows for heavy scripting. A lot of GUIs have taken advantage of this feature. It works primarily Linux but also Windows, OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, as well as Solaris.

Network Mapper, also commonly known as Nmap, is a free and open source utility for network discovery and security auditing. Nmap uses raw IP packets in stealthy ways to determine what hosts are available on the network, what services (application name and version) those hosts are offering, what operating systems they are running, what type of packet filters/firewalls are in use, and dozens of other characteristics.

Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks like:

network inventory
managing service upgrade schedules
monitoring host or service uptime

THC Hydra

When you need to brute force crack a remote authentication service, Hydra is often the tool of choice. It can perform rapid dictionary attacks against more than 50 protocols, including telnet, FTP, HTTP, HTTPs, SMB, several databases, and much more. it can be used to crack into web scanners, wireless networks, packet crafters, etc.

Nessus

Nessus is a remote scanning tool that you can use to check computers for security vulnerabilities. It does not actively block any vulnerabilities that your computers have but it will be able to sniff them out by quickly running 1200+ vulnerability checks and throwing alerts when any security patches need to be made.

WireShark

WireShark is an open-source packet analyzer that you can use free of charge. With it, you can see the activities on a network from a microscopic level coupled with pcap file access, customizable reports, advanced triggers, alerts, etc. It is reportedly the world’s most widely-used network protocol analyzer for Linux.

Demonstration of Power: Aircrack-ng and Crunch

Step 1: Check the name of your wireless interface and put it into monitor mode.

Step 2: Kill any processes that might interfere with the scan process. Always kill network administrator first. You might need to run the shown command more than once.

Step 3: After you have successfully killed all process, run the command — airodump-ng . It should produce a list of access points as shown below:

Step 4: Choose the access point and run it along with the -w flag to write the result into a file. Our file is called capture.

Step 5: Running the above command should show you the MAC address of the devices connected to that access point under ‘stations’.

Step 6 — This is the most important step in ethical hacking using Kali Linux. Here we will broadcast a de-authentication signal to the access point we have chosen to attack. This disconnects the devices connected to the access point. Since these devices will most likely have the password stored they will try to auto reconnect. This will start a 4-way handshake between the device and the access point and will be captured in the scan going on from step 4 (yes, that scan is still running in the background).

Step 7: Now we will use crunch along with aircrack-ng. Crunch is a wordlist generator. This process to crack passwords assumes you know a little about the password, for example, the length, some specific characters etc. The more you know the faster the process. Here I have tried to generate a list of words that begin with ‘sweetship’ as I know that password contains that phrase. The result is piped into the aircrack command which takes the capture files and compares the key values.

Step 8: The scan results should look something like this depending on the parameters you have input.

Step 9: When the password is matched. It shows it in the bracket following ‘key found’.

This brings us to the end of our article on Ethical Hacking using Kali Linux. I hope you found this article informative and added value to your knowledge. If you wish to check out more articles on the market’s most trending technologies like Artificial Intelligence, DevOps, Cloud, then you can refer to Edureka’s official site.

Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Ethical Hacking.

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What is backtrack and kali linux

Новый дистрибутив Backtrack: встречайте Kali Linux