Kali Linux 2022.1: Released with 6 new tools

Offensive Security has just released Kali Linux 2022.1, its first release for 2022, with improved accessibility features, a refreshed look, and broad SSH compatibility.

See also: Hunting down the pwnkit vulnerability (CVE-2021-4034) on Linux

Kali Linux is a version of Linux that allows cybersecurity experts and ethical hackers to perform security audits on internal and remote networks.

With this new release, the Kali Linux team adds the following changes:

• Refreshed look – Updated wallpapers and GRUB theme.
• Changes to Shell Prompt – Visual improvements for greater readability when copying code.
• Updated browser pages – The Firefox and Chromium homepages have been redesigned to help you access everything you need in Kali.
• Kali Everything Image – A bundle of packages that is available for immediate download.
• Kali-Tweaks Meets SSH – Connect to old SSH servers using legacy SSH protocols and encryption.
• VMware i3 Improvements – Host-guest operations now work better on i3.
• Accessibility features – Speech synthesis is in the Kali installer.
• New Tools – Many new tools have been added and many of them are from ProjectDiscovery!

Renewed Appearance

The Kali team has refreshed the look of this release by adding new desktop, login, and boot backgrounds, and a new installer theme.

SSH gains broad compatibility

As more and more insecure encryption algorithms are discovered, it is common for Linux distributions to disable them in SSH by default to increase the security of the operating system. Since Kali Linux is designed for security auditing, it is especially useful to have access to these older algorithms to communicate with legacy applications and services.

See also: LockBit ransomware: Linux version targets VMware ESXi servers

Specifically, the team says that with this new release, we can more easily configure the SSH client for better compatibility, so that Kali can communicate with as many SSH servers as possible. In wide compatibility mode in Kali, legacy key exchange algorithms (such as diffie-hellman-* -sha1) and legacy ciphers (such as CBC) are enabled. As a result, these tools used within Kali can communicate using these deprecated methods. This improves Kali's ability to communicate with older, deprecated SSH servers that still use these protocols, while older services that still use these protocols may be nearing the end of their life, thus increasing the chances of discovering vulnerabilities or other problems.

However, since these algorithms are not secure, Kali does not have the broad compatibility feature enabled by default and users must enable it through kali-tweaks.

New tools added to Kali Linux 2022.1

Below you will see the new tools in this version of the operating system:

• dnsx – Fast and multipurpose DNS toolkit allows for multiple DNS queries
• email2phonenumber – An OSINT tool to get a person's phone number just by having their email address
• naabu – A fast port scanner with an emphasis on reliability and simplicity
• nuclei – Targeted scanning based on templates
• PoshC2 – A C2 framework that understands proxies with post-exploitation and lateral movement
• proxify – The Swiss Army knife, a proxy tool for recording, manipulating, and replaying HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

Improved ARM support

As with almost all new Kali Linux releases, the developers have improved ARM support by fixing bugs and adding additional packages.

The new packages now available on ARM versions are:

• feroxbuster
• ghidra

This release also fixes Bluetooth on RaspberryPi images, except for Zero 2 W, which is still under development.

Finally, ARM build scripts now have a dedicated documentation page.

How to get Kali Linux 2022.1

To get started with Kali Linux 2022.1, you can upgrade your existing installation or download ISO images for a new installation. For those who choose to update their existing installation, including Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installations, you can use the following commands to upgrade to the latest version.

echo "deb https://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade cp -rbi /etc/skel/. ~/ [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f

When you complete the installation you can see if it worked with the following command.

grep VERSION /etc/os-release

While we briefly reviewed the new Kali Linux 2022.1, you can see the full changelog for Kali 2022.1 which is located on its website.

Source : bleeping computer.com