5 Linux Penetration Testing Distributions for Hackers

5 Linux Penetration Testing Distributions for Hackers

Linux has gained popularity in the area of penetration testing and information security. Not just because of its security but because of its efficiency because most Pen testing Linux distros can be just  booted using your flash drive or a live CD . These live penetration testing distros contains a package of tools for hacking or cracking a system. Each pentesting distro has its own pros, cons So I've decided to write a review on my 5 favorite Penetrating Distros that i have used

BackTrack 5

BackTrack is a most famous and widely used Pen-tester distribution out there.The evolution of BackTrack spans many years of development, penetration tests, and unprecedented help from the security community. BackTrack originally started with earlier versions of live Linux distributions called Whoppix, IWHAX, and Auditor. BackTrack 5 R2 is the latest version that has been released, it has more than  350 security tools to perform pen-testing. BackTrack is one of my favorite pentesting distros that can run on a live CD or flash drive. Ideal for wireless cracking, exploiting, web application assessment, learning, or social-engineering a client.


BackBox

BackBox is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It has been developed to perform penetration tests and security assessments. Designed to be fast, easy to use and provide a minimal yet complete desktop environment, thanks to its own software repositories, always being updated to the latest stable version of the most used and best known ethical hackingtools
BlackBuntu

Blackbuntu is another penetration testing distro based on Ubuntu obviously because of its name. It uses GNOME as its DE and uses the Ubuntu 10.10 release. The categories of its tools include Information Gathering, Network Mapping, Vulnerability Identification, Penetration, Privilege Escalation, Maintaining Access, Radio Network Analysis, VOIP Analysis,Digital Forensic, Reverse Engineering and other Miscellaneous tools like macchanger and lynis auditing tools

Knoppix STD

As the name suggests this distribution is based on Knoppix and STD stands for Security Tools Distribution. This distribution didn’t get any update (like most pen-test distros) in a long time and might not work on some new hardwares but they have a fairly good collection of tools. fluxbox is used for desktop environment.

Peento

Peento is a smart and well equipped linux distro with various tools, based on Gentoo.It's basically a gentoo install with lots of customized tools, customized kernel, and much more