Kali Linux 1.0.7 Released

Kernel 3.14 Tool Updates, Package Improvements

Kali linux 1.0.7 has just been released, complete with a whole bunch of tool updates, a new kernel, and some cool new features. Check out our changelog for a full list of these items. As usual, you don’t need to re-download or re-install Kali to benefit from these updates – you can update to the latest and greatest using these simple commands:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
# If you've just updated your kernel, then:
reboot

Kali Linux Encrypted USB Persistence

One of the new sought out features introduced (which is also partially responsible for the kernel update) is the ability to create Kali Linux Live USB with LUKS Encrypted Persistence. This feature ushers in a new era of secure Kali Linux USB portability, allowing us to either boot to a “clean” Kali image or alternatively, overlay it with the contents of a persistent encrypted partition, all within the same USB drive.

Tool Developers Ahoy!

This release also marks the beginning of some co-ordinated efforts between Kali developers and tool developers to make sure their tools are represented correctly and are fully functional within Kali Linux. We would like to thank the metasploit, w3af, and wpscan dev teams for working with us to perfect their Kali packages and hope that more tool developers join in. Tool developers are welcome to send us an email to info@kali.org and we’ll be happy to work with you to better integrate your tool into Kali.

Kali Linux: Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

For quite some time now, we’ve been preaching that Kali Linux is more than a “Linux distribution with a collection of tools in it”. We invest a significant of time and resources developing and enabling features in the distribution which we think are useful for penetration testers and other security professionals. These features range from things like “live-build“, which allows our end users to easily customize their own Kali ISOs to features like Live USB persistence encryption, which provides paranoid users with an extra layer of security. Many of these features are unique to Kali and can be found nowhere else. We’ve started tallying these features and linking them from our Kali documentation page – check it out, it’s growing to be an impressive list!

Torrents, Virtual Machine & ARM Images

In the next few days, Offensive Security will post Virtual Machine and custom ARM images for the 1.0.7 release. We will announce the availability of these images via our blogs and Twitter feeds, so stay tuned!.

Kali Linux Encrypted USB Persistence

A few days ago, we added an awesome new feature to Kali allowing users to set up a Live Kali USB with encrypted persistence. What this means is that you can now create a bootable Kali USB drive allowing you to either live boot to a “clean” Kali image or alternatively, overlay it with the contents of a persistent encrypted partition, allowing you to securely save your changes on the USB drive between reboots. If you add our LUKS nuke feature into this mix together with a 32GB USB 3.0 thumb drive, you’ve got yourself a fast, versatile, and secure “Penetration Testing Travel Kit”.

New Default Kali Boot Options

From Kali 1.0.7 onwards, everything needed for encrypted Live USB persistence to work is already available in our ISO release, including an altered boot menu which now also contains two persistent boot options:

For either of these persistence options to work, we first need to image the Kali ISO to the USB device and then prepare a persistence partition, which can now also be encrypted. We’ve updated our Kali Linux documentation site to include the instructions for setting up your own Kali Linux Live USB with encrypted persistence.

Following these few simple commands, you can now secure your USB persistent data while traveling. Of course, if you’re über paranoid, you can also enable the Kali LUKS nuke feature to this persistent storage. Following the example from our Kali documentation site, our LUKS encrypted partition is located at/dev/sdb2. We can add a LUKS nuke key as follows:

root@kali:~# cryptsetup luksAddNuke /dev/sdb2
Enter any existing passphrase:     (the existing password)
Enter new passphrase for key slot: (the nuke password)

Once the nuke key is set, all the data on the encrypted persistent partition would be rendered useless should the nuke key be entered at boot time.