Kali Linux Blog

LIGHTDARK

Kali Linux 2024.3 Release (Multiple transitions)

With summer coming to an end, so are package migrations, and Kali 2024.3 can now be released. You can now start downloading or upgrading if you have an existing Kali installation. The summary of the changelog since the 2024.2 release from June is: Qualcomm NetHunter Pro Devices - Qualcomm Snapdragon SDM845 SoC now supported New Tools - 11x new tools in your arsenal Our focus has been on a lot of behind the scenes updates and optimizations since the last release.

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xz-utils backdoor: how to get started

Following the recent disclosure of a backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma, we are writing this “get started” kind of blog post. We will explain how to setup an environment with the backdoored version of liblzma, and then the first commands to run to validate that the backdoor is installed. All in all, it should just take a few minutes, and there’s no learning curve, it’s all very simple.

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All about the xz-utils backdoor

As of 5:00 pm ET on March 29, 2024 the following information is accurate. Should there be updates to this situation, they will be edited onto this blog post. The xz-utils package, starting from versions 5.6.0 to 5.6.1, was found to contain a backdoor (CVE-2024-3094). This backdoor could potentially allow a malicious actor to compromise sshd authentication, granting unauthorized access to the entire system remotely.

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Kali Linux 2024.1 Release (Micro Mirror)

Hello 2024! Today we are unveiling Kali Linux 2024.1. As this is our the first release of the year, it does include new visual elements! Along with this we also have some exciting new mirrors to talk about, and of course some package changes - both new tools and upgrades to existing ones.

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Kali Linux DEI Promise

Last month we were privileged to be invited by GitLab to participate in the introduction of GitLab’s DEI Badging integration. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) badging is an initiative that the Community Health Analytics in Open Source Software (CHAOSS) project created to acknowledge and encourage open source projects’ efforts. Since we first heard of this initiative we have been very excited for the launch.

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The great non-free-firmware transition

TL;DR: Dear Kali user, when you have a moment, check your /etc/apt/sources.list, and add non-free-firmware if ever it’s missing. Programmatically speaking: kali@kali:~$ sudo sed -i 's/non-free$/non-free non-free-firmware/' /etc/apt/sources.list Long story now. As you might know already, Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution. As such, it inherits a number of things from Debian, and in particular, the structure of the package repository.

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Kali Linux 2023.3 Release (Internal Infrastructure & Kali Autopilot)

Today we are delighted to introduce our latest release of Kali, 2023.3. This release blog post does not have the most features in it, as a lot of the changes have been behind-the-scenes, which brings a huge benefit to us and an indirect positive effect to you as end-users. It always goes without saying, but there are a number of new packages and tools as well as the standard updates.

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Pip install and Python's externally managed

TL;DR: pip install is on the way out. Installing Python packages must be done via APT, aka. Kali Linux’s package manager. Python packages coming from other sources should be installed in virtual environments. Long story below. Some background Back in February this year, for a few days, some of you might have tried (and failed) to install Python packages with Pip, aka.

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