Kali your way down the secure valley!

It’s a dark world out there. And if you’re a lone warrior, you’d need all the ammo you can get your hands on. What an M416 rifle is to players in CS:GO, Kali Linux is to hackers, or anyone who wants to get down and dirty in offensive security. 

Also known as hackers paradise, Kali Linux is a debian based Linux distribution. Being one of the most advanced operating systems, it comprises of more than 600 tools. All the penetration testers in the house, put your hands up cause Kali got your back! And just so that the Forensic guys don’t feel left out, Kali’s got a lot of tools in store for them too. 

Kali Linux is free and as easy just like any other Linux system. It comes with all the necessary tools – basic and advanced, pre-built in it, saving you from the hassle of looking for relevant tools elsewhere. You could also customise the OS using gnome-tweak-tools. 

If you’re way too committed to Windows or whichever operating system you already have on your host machine but still want to give Kali a chance, you could simply use it on a virtual machine. Also, if you’re new to the Linux environment and are too lazy to go through with the installation process, you could make use of the Kali Linux ova file or use it in the live mode on a virtual machine. Once you’ve got your setup in place, you can start losing yourself in everything it has to offer. 

Keeping in mind that not everyone has laptops with amazing specifications, Kali came up with the Kali Light and XFCE versions. Apart from these, it also comes in various versions depending on an individual’s requirements. Some of these are Kali Linux mate, Kali Linux KDE, Kali Linux LXDE, Kali Linux 17 et cetera.

Kali has tools for everything you’d want to try atleast once in your life as someone who is very much inquisitive to know what’s up in Cyber Security. Information Gathering, Vulnerability Analysis, Wireless Attacks, Web Applications, Sniffing & Spoofing, Password Attacks, Maintaining Access, Reverse Engineering, Hardware Hacking, Reporting Tools, Exploitation Tools, Forensics Tools, Stress Testing are what these tools cover. Here at CyberCaffeine, we’ve tried our hands at a variety of tools but our personal favourites have got to be the Social Engineering Toolkit (SET) and Metasploit.
To summarize the things we love about Kali, we give to you 

The Pros:

1. Customizable – Based on the version you’re using, you can customise the Kali’s themes and the dock.
2. Pre installed tools – Like we mentioned before, there are more than 600 tools waiting to be made use of. And since these are pre installed, you save a lot of time looking for installation manuals for tools you wish to use.
3.  Customizable kernel – Yes, I know we listed customizable as the very first point but this one’s a big deal! You can customize the Kali Linux kernel and modify and recompile it however you like. (We messed up pretty bad the first time we tried this though. Thank God for Virtual Machines and their snapshots!)
4. FREE – Well, we just had to mention this. What else could be more alluring to budding security geeks?
5. Community – Kali Linux has a really huge community that includes numerous security professionals, forensic analysts and enthusiasts alike.
6. Documentation – So that you don’t get lost in the labyrinth of tools, Kali’s got documents for most of them. Wanna see? https://tools.kali.org/tools-listing

Just so that this doesn’t seem like a Kali appreciation blog, we’ll tell you some of its cons too.

Cons :

1. Lag – The fact that we’ve got 600 tools to use is overwhelming. But some of them you might never use. You can’t get rid of any of them which is why there are chances that it may lag.
2. Specification – The minimum requirement in order to use Kali is 1gb ram and a 20 GB hard disk. We tried using it with these specs but well, it was a nightmare. It wasn’t enough at all.
3. Mirrors – Kali mirrors are slower than Ubuntu or other Linux mirrors.
4. Updates – Having a wide variety of tools is of no use if you don’t keep them updated. The apt-get update && upgrade command is your best friend in times like these. Updating so many tools is quite a task and certainly takes up a lot of time.

Well, now that you know where to start, why don’t you give it a chance and see for yourself? Who knows, you might end up liking Kali more than we do 😉