Squash the Bugs with Kali 1.0.9a Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen a bunch of nasty bugs hit the scene, from shellshock to Debian apt vulnerabilities. As we prefer not to ship vulnerable ISOs, we’ve rolled up new images for our Kali Linux and NetHunter releases as well our Amazon AWS images with the relevant security fixes in place. These images correspond to Kali 1.0.9a and NetHunter 1.0.2 versions, now available for download through our mirrors. We expect the Amazon images to be updated in the AWS backend by the end of the week. If you’re already running Kali Linux, all you need to do is run an update and dist-upgrade to get the latest and greatest:
Now that we have caught our breath after the Black Hat and DEF CON conferences, we have put aside some time to fix an annoying bug in our 1.0.8 ISO releases related to outdated firmware as well as regenerate fresh new ARM and VMware images (courtesy of OffSec ) for our new 1.0.9 release. With this release come a few more updates worth mentioning:
The long awaited Kali Linux USB EFI boot support feature has been added to our binary ISO builds, which has prompted this early Kali Linux 1.0.8 release. This new feature simplifies getting Kali installed and running on more recent hardware which requires EFI as well as various Apple Macbooks Air and Retina models. Besides the addition of EFI support, there is a whole array of tool updates and fixes that have accumulated over the past couple of months.
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:
One of our goals when developing Kali Linux was to provide multiple metapackages that would allow us to easily install subsets of tools based on their particular needs. Until recently, we only had a handful of these meta packages but we have since expanded the metapackage list to include far more options:
Kali Linux in the Amazon EC2 Marketplace EDIT: For updated Kali Rolling images in the Amazon AWS, check this post.
After several weeks of “back and forth” with the Amazon EC2 team, Kali Linux has finally been approved into the Amazon EC2 marketplace. This means that our users can now activate and access Kali Linux instances in the Amazon cloud quickly and easily. We are “selling” these images on the marketplace for free, so other than the regular amazon charges, there no extras to pay. We have currently published a single 64 bit minimal instance of Kali Linux, which can be found in the marketplace by searching for “Kali Linux” or accessed via its direct link.
Kali Linux contains a large number of very useful tools that are beneficial to information security professionals. One set of such tools belongs to the Pass-the-Hash toolkit, which includes favorites such as pth-winexe among others, already packaged in Kali Linux. An example of easy command line access using pth-winexe is shown below.
There’s been a fair amount of discussion around the recently introduced LUKS nuke patch we added to the cryptsetup package in Kali Linux. We wanted to take this opportunity to better explain this feature, as well as demonstrate some useful approaches which are worthwhile getting to know.
LUKS Nuke in a Nutshell As explained well By Michael Lee in his ZDNet article, when creating an encrypted LUKS container, a master key is generated at random. A passphrase is then used to encrypt the master key in turn. This process means that the passphrase is not directly coupled to the data. That is, if two sets of identical data are encrypted and the same passphrase used, the master keys remain unique to each set and cannot be swapped out. What this also means however, is that regardless of the passphrase used, if the master key is lost, recovering data is impossible. This process conveniently lends itself to being used as a nuke by deliberately wiping the keys.
Kernel 3.12, LUKS nuke, Amazon AMI / Google Compute images and more! It’s been a while since our last minor release which makes 1.0.6 a more significant update than usual. With a new 3.12 kernel, a LUKS nuke feature, new Kali ARM build scripts, and Kali AMAZON AMI and Google Compute image generation scripts, not to mention numerous tool additions and updates - this release is really heavily laden with goodness. For more information about what’s new in this release, check the Kali changelog.
Kali Linux Full Disk Encryption As penetration testers, we often need to travel with sensitive data stored on our laptops. Of course, we use full disk encryption wherever possible, including our Kali Linux machines, which tend to contain the most sensitive materials.
Setting up full disk encryption with Kali is a simple process. The Kali installer includes a straightforward process for setting up encrypted partitions with LVM and LUKS. Once encrypted, the Kali operating system requires a password at boot time to allow the OS to boot and decrypt your drive, thus protecting this data in case your laptop is stolen. Managing decryption keys and partitions is done using the cryptsetup utility.
