While BackTrack used to have a large number of outdated penetration tools, Kali boasts over 600 penetration testing tools (some GUI and some CLI apps) (i.e. You can't talk about Kali and not mention its immense set of tools. Historically a big user of GNOME, nowadays Kali allows its users to choose between three popular desktop environments: Xfce, GNOME, and KDE Plasma. Let's start off with the desktop environment. It would be simple to call Kali Linux just a Debian-based Linux distro with some specialized tools sprinkled on top, but the truth is that Kali Linux is more than just the sum of its parts. This makes the distro very secure by default, but it also makes it not exactly welcoming to users who don't know what they are doing. For example, the network services are disabled by default. That's exactly why, even though it's based on Debian, they are very different, with Kali having many common services disabled by default. The OS' motto is 'The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.' But, what does that mean? Kali Linux is designed to be quiet, in the sense that it goes to great lengths to hide its presence on networks, as well as to be protected against various types of attacks. To be more precise, it's 'the most advanced Penetration Testing Distribution,' geared towards computer security and network experts.įormerly known as BlackTrack Linux, Kali Linux is an open-source, Debian-based Linux distribution that contains several hundred tools (around 600 penetration test tools alone) built specifically for penetration testing, security research, computer forensics, and reverse engineering. What exactly is Kali Linux? It's one of the few 'hacking-focused' Linux distros.

The show's main character is Elliot Alderson, a brilliant young cyber-security engineer and vigilante hacker that gets mixed up in some seriously f-ed up business.Įlliot's distribution of choice is, of course, Kali Linux. Hacking has always been a cool thing in popular culture, and even though various movies and shows have tried to portray a genuine hacking-based narrative, not many do a better job than Mr.

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