Introduction to Kali Linux – history and purpose

Kali Linux (Kali) is the successor to the BackTrack pentesting platform, which is generally regarded as the de facto standard package of tools used to facilitate pentesting to secure data and voice networks. It was developed by Mati Aharoni and Devon Kearns of Offensive Security. The following details on the history of Kali are from BackTrack:

• In March 2013, BackTrack was superseded by Kali, which uses a new platform architecture based on the Debian GNU/Linux operating system.
• Kali 1.1.0 (February 9, 2015): This was the first dot release in two years, in which the kernel was changed to 3.18, had a patch for wireless injection attacks, and had support for wireless drivers – around 58 bugs were fixed. Other releases, such as Kali 1.1.0a, fixed the inconsistencies in the installers.
• Kali 2.0 (August 11, 2015): This was a major release – now a rolling distribution – with major UI changes. Kali 2.0 can be updated from the older version to the new version.
• Kali 2016.1 (January 21, 2016): The first rolling release of Kali. Kernel 4.3 and the latest Gnome 3.18 were updated.
• Kali 2016.2 (August 31, 2016): The second Kali rolling release. Kernel 4.6 and Gnome 3.20.2 were updated, and there were also some bug fixes.

The other features of Kali 2.0 include the following:

• Over 300 pentesting data forensics and defensive tools are included in it. The majority of the tools have now been replaced by similar tools that provide extensive wireless support, with multiple hardware and kernel patches to permit the packet injection required by some wireless attacks.
• Support for multiple desktop environments, such as KDE, GNOME3, Xfce, MATE, e17, lxde, and i3wm, is available.
• Debian-compliant tools are synchronized with Debian repositories at least four times a day, making it easier to update packages and apply security fixes.
• There are Secure Development Environment- and GPG-signed packages and repositories.
• Support for ISO customizations, allowing users to build their own versions of customized Kali, is available. The bootstrap function also performs enterprise-wide network installs that can be automated using preseed files.
• Since increases in ARM-based systems have become more prevalent and less expensive, support for ARMEL and ARMHF in Kali to be installed on devices such as rk3306 mk/ss808, Raspberry Pi, ODROID U2/X2, Samsung Chromebook, EfikaMX, Beaglebone Black, CuBox, and Galaxy Note 10.1 was introduced.
• Kali continues to be an open source project that is free. Most importantly, it is well supported by an active online community.

The purpose of Kali is to secure things and bundle all the tools to provide a single platform for penetration testers.