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.[citation needed]
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.[11][12][13]
Version history
The first version, 1.0.0 "moto", was released in March 2013.[1]
With version 2019.4 in November 2019, the default user interface was switched from GNOME to Xfce, with a GNOME version still available.[3]
With version 2020.3 in August 2020, the default shell was switched from Bash to ZSH, with Bash remaining as an option.[14]
Requirements
Kali Linux requires:
A minimum of 20GB hard disk space for installation, depending on the version. Version 2020.2 requires at least 20GB.[15]
A minimum of 2GB RAM for i386 and AMD64 architectures.
A CD-DVD drive, USB stick or other bootable media.
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 has a dedicated project set aside for compatibility and porting to specific Android devices, called Kali NetHunter.[20]
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.[20]
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.[21]
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, and Wifislax. Kali Linux has stood out against these other distributions for cyber security and penetration testing,[22] as well as having features such as the default user being the superuser in the Kali Live Environment.[23]
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,[32] and makes it available for free download.[33]
^Orin, Andy (2014-12-03). "Behind the App: The Story of Kali Linux". Lifehacker. Archived from the original on 2021-10-20. Retrieved 2019-04-10. Mati Aharoni: One of our goals with Kali is to provide images of the operating system for all sorts of exotic hardware—mainly ARM based. This includes everything from Raspberry Pi's to tablets, to Android TV devices, with each piece of hardware having some unique property.