Kali Undercover is a set of scripts that change the theme of your Kali Linux to a Windows 10 alike theme.

It was released with Kali Linux 2019.4 with an important concept in mind, to hide in plain sight.

Switching to undercover mode is pretty simple, just run the following command:

kali@kali:~$ kali-undercover
kali@kali:~$

or, you could also look for “Kali Undercover Mode” from the menu of your desktop and launch it from there.

Swoosh! Now, you are (almost) invisible to most indescrete eyes by having a theme that would make most people think you are using Windows 10.

Now, to revert back into your previous Kali Linux theme just re-enter the previous command:

kali@kali:~$ kali-undercover
kali@kali:~$

Ta-da! Welcome back! Now, all your desktop settings should be restored.

The main purpose of introducing Kali Undercover mode is to prevent any unnecessary attention while using Kali Linux in public.

Let’s imagine a scenario: you are ethically pentesting your client and you are in their office or reception doing reconnaissance or something that involves the use of Kali Linux.

Someone from your client’s office or some random on-looker spots the desktop environment/wallpaper of Kali Linux, so they might think you are doing something mischievous even though you are doing it ethically and warn the authority. All the hard work that you did from the beginning to become stealthy will go in vain. And that’s because of what? A wallpaper! For a client who requested you to become stealthy, this is not what you would want.

Hence, to prevent any kind of unwanted attention from public it’s better to go “Undercover!”.