To those that might already be aware of Kali (once known as BackTrack) might be happy to know that the team at Offensive Security have kicked off this year with a new release to the Linux Distro used specifically for Penetration testing (or hacking).

This post won’t be an overall breakdown of what Kali is (or even a highlight to it’s new features) but rather a brief note on this release and a kudos to Offensive Security!

Whether you are a pro blackhat hacker who has been using Metasploit & Kali for years or even if you have the bare minimum knowledge, anyone reading this should be excited to know that the biggest development in this new release is the support for Metasploit 5.

The platform which can be used on a live USB/disk , as an installed OS or even as a mobile OS (Also check out zANTI ) was a true eye opener for me in regards to just how easy exploitation can be. What once seemed like hollywood dark-arts and required dedicated insomnia-driven enthusiasm has since been made into a ScriptKiddie’s walk in the park due to Kali. The last statement here isn’t a negative, systems world wide have been hardened and pen-testers alike have access to one of the best toolkits out there due to the open-source nature of Linux & Kali (respectively).

If anyone ever wants to discover or learn anything to do with Hacking (and the offensive side of security) I’ve always pointed to Kali and insisted “start here” and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

You can find their blog post detailing this release here: https://www.kali.org/news/kali-linux-2019-1-release/