BEST OS FOR ETHICAL HACKING

Date of Submission:
25/04/2021
Prepared for:
Sir Ali Hussain
Prepared by:
Saim Abbas (FA20-BSE-149)
Shaheer Ahmed (FA20-BSE-086)
Mujtaba Ahmed (FA20-BSE-076)
Amna Khalid (FA20-BSE-134)
Ayesha Rizwan (FA20-BSE-148)

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 Executive Summary
In this report we have introduced you to Kali Linux, provided a bit of history, run through some

of the primary features, and presented several use cases. We have also discussed some of the

policies we have adopted when developing Kali Linux. Kali Linux has many advanced features

including: use as a live (non-installed) system, a robust and safe forensics mode, a custom Linux

kernel, ability to completely customize the system, a trusted and secure base operating system,

ARM installation capability, secure default network policies, and a curated set of applications.

Ethical Hacking basically sometimes called as Penetration Test is an act of penetrating into

system or networks to find out vulnerabilities in those systems. The purpose of Ethical Hacking

is to improve the security of the network or systems by fixing the bugs found during the

penetration test.

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 Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary________________________________________ Pg # 02
2. Introduction______________________________________________ Pg # 04
2.1. Background Information____________________________________ Pg # 04
2.2. Statement of the Purpose____________________________________ Pg # 05
2.3. Significance of the Study____________________________________ Pg # 05
2.4. Scope of the Study________________________________________ Pg # 05
2.5. Limitations of Study_______________________________________ Pg # 05
3. Review of related literature__________________________________ Pg # 06
4. Methods of study__________________________________________ Pg # 07
4.1. Source of Data__________________________________________ Pg # 07
4.2. Sample selection________________________________________ Pg # 07
5. Results_________________________________________________ Pg # 07
6. Conclusions_____________________________________________ Pg # 10
6.1. More than 600 penetration testing tools included__________________ Pg # 10
6.2. Free (as beer in) and always will be___________________________ Pg # 10
6.3. Open source Git tree_____________________________________ Pg # 10
6.4. FHS compliant_________________________________________ Pg # 10
6.5. Wide-ranging wireless device support_________________________ Pg # 10
6.6. Custom kernel, patched for injection__________________________ Pg # 10
6.7. Develop in a secure environment____________________________ Pg # 11
6.8. GPG signed packages and repositories________________________ Pg # 11
6.9. Multi-language support___________________________________ Pg # 11
6.10. Completely customizable_____________________________ Pg # 11
6.11. ARMEL and ARMHF support_________________________ Pg # 11
7. Recommendations_______________________________________ Pg # 11
8. References_____________________________________________ Pg # 12

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 Introduction
Hacking is the activity of identifying vulnerabilities in a computer system or network that takes

advantage of security to gain access to personal data or business data. There are different ways of

hacking. Ethical Hacking basically sometimes called as Penetration Test is an act of penetrating

into system or networks to find out vulnerabilities in those systems. The purpose of Ethical

Hacking is to improve the security of the network or systems by fixing the bugs found during the

penetration test. There is must be some system or software on which hacking performed. And

that system is known as Operating System. Every computer system must have at least one

Operating System. It helps us to communicate with computer without knowing how to speak

computer’s language and the component which is to manage communication is Kernel. Until a

few years ago, Linux was primarily used for servers and was not considered suitable for

desktops. But its user interface and ease of use have been steadily improving over the years.

Linux today has become user-friendly enough to replace Windows on desktops. It is used by

hundreds of thousands of people around the world. And further distribution which is used for

Ethical hacking is Kali Linux. Kali Linus is developed according to Debian development

standards. It was developed as a refined pen-testing distro that will be offered as an alternative to

the backtrack OS.

2.1 Background Information

At the outset of international conflict, terrorist organizations provide funding to cybercriminals

to crack security systems, either by compromising national security features or by injecting

malware and refusing to do so. As a result of the constant rise of cybercrime. Organizations face

the challenge of updating hacker prevention measures and applying a variety of technologies to

protect the system before being hacked. New bugs, malware, and viruses are the main benefits

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that are growing every day and creating the need for ethical hacking services to protect

businesses, government agencies, or defense networks.

2.2 Statement of the Purpose:

This report aims at highlighting the best Operating system used for Ethical hacking. This

includes the main features of Kali Linux on behalf of which it is called as the best OS for Ethical

Hacking. We will discuss the tools of Kali Linux.

2.3 Significance of the Study:

This report is very helpful for those people who are beginner in hacking field and want to choose

OS for hacking. After study this report, reader will able to answer following questions,

What is OS?

What is Ethical Hacking?

Why Kali Linux is best for Ethical Hacking?

2.4 Scope of the Study:

This study was conducted and limited to Kali Linux used for Ethical Hacking. This study is

based on Kali Linux advanced features and tools for penetration test. The data was collected

from different research papers and websites.

2.5 Limitations of the Study:

Most of readers may often duped into a false sense of security and a false sense of skill. Meaning

that they think it is all need to become a hacker. That is the furthest from the truth. Furthermore,

Kali is not as easy to use, because its penetration oriented, and it doesn’t even try to hold your

hands. It is designed for a single purpose so it is not as good for other purposes.

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 Review of Related Literature
This topic is very vast and once can have a variety of sources for the research.

KALI LINUX- THE BACKTRACK SUCCESOR by Sonu Tiwary. Sonu Tiwary has more

than 6 years of experience in IT industry with core expertise in Linux. He is currently working as

an Assistant Technical Manager with Koenig Solutions Ltd. He has vast experience on open

source technologies and has also handled several projects which demand in-depth knowledge of

Linux. He is an engineering graduate in Computer Science and holds Red Hat Certified Engineer

(RHCE) certification.

KALI LINUX REVEALED by Raphaël Hertzog, Jim O’Gorman, and Mati Aharoni (cited by

6). This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

License. Some sections of this book borrow content from the “Debian Administrator’s

Handbook, Debian Jessie from Discovery to Mastery” written by Raphaël Hertzog and Roland

Mas.

KALI LINUX COOKBOOK by WL Pritchett, D De Smet (cited by 34). A practical, cookbook

style with numerous chapters and recipes explaining the penetration testing. The cookbook-style

recipes allow you to go directly to your topic of interest if you are an expert using this book as a

reference

KALI LINUX SOCIAL ENGINEERING by RS Patel (cited by 24). This book is a practical,

hands-on guide to learning and performing SET attacks with multiple examples. Kali Linux

Social Engineering is for penetration testers who want to use Backtrack in order to test for social

engineering vulnerabilities.

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 Methods of the study
4.1 Source of Data
Data of this study was collected through the detailed analysis of reports. Apart from this,

different publications were studied online, and facts and figures were taken from them. Many

articles were studied thoroughly and the data among them with factual reasoning was considered.

4.2 Sample Selection

Each member of research team was responsible for a separate collection of data about the

working of OS, Ethical Hacking, and Kali Linux. After the data collection, the common linking

between the datasets was sorted. To ensure that the data was factual and included no personal

preference, the source was traced and confirmed that it provided the official information. For a

comparison of Kali Linux features and tools a second OS was taken to compare it i.e. Microsoft

Windows.

Results
Kali Linux is specifically geared to meet the requirements of professional penetration testing and

security auditing. To achieve this, several core changes have been implemented in Kali Linux

which reflect these needs:

 Network services disabled by default: Kali Linux contains system hooks that disable

network services by default. These hooks allow us to install various services on Kali

Linux, while ensuring that our distribution remains secure by default, no matter what

packages are installed. Additional services such as Bluetooth are also blacklisted by

default.

 Custom Linux kernel: Kali Linux uses an upstream kernel, patched for wireless injection.

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 A minimal and trusted set of repositories: given the aims and goals of Kali Linux,

maintaining the integrity of the system as a whole is absolutely key. With that goal in

mind, the set of upstream software sources which Kali uses is kept to an absolute

minimum. Many new Kali users are tempted to add additional repositories to their

sources list, but doing so runs a very serious risk of breaking your Kali Linux installation.

If we compare Linux with MS Windows in features to do Ethical Hacking,

Linux Vs MS Windows Performance

Definition
It is an open source operating system It is an operating system developed by
Microsoft Company

Usage
Linux is used as operating system, as server, Windows is an operating system provides
provide platform to run other applications platform to run other applications. It is used
as Operating system for personal computers,
servers, mobiles etc.

Benefits
Linux is an open source, developer can Windows is low cost operating system and
download and modify kernel of it according don’t have much permissions for root
to requirement can distribute, but having changings.
restrictions that can’t change for the money.
Developed Year
First released of Linux was come in 1991 It was developed in 1985 to use as an
operating system

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Now, according to this researched analysis table, Linux is more comfortable and used for some

major purposes like hacking and many else, because hacking wants a root directory which is not

accessible in MS Windows, and Linux distribution was released names as Kali Linux which is

best for Ethical Hacking because it has more tools for penetration test. Kali Linux has also

gained a lot of popularity recently.

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 Conclusions
Kali Linux is considered to be best for Ethical Hacking because of following features:

6.1 More than 600 penetration testing tools included:

After reviewing every tool that was included in BackTrack, developers eliminated a great

number of tools that either simply did not work or which duplicated other tools that provided the

same or similar functionality.

6.2 Free (as in beer) and always will be:

Kali Linux, like BackTrack, is completely free of charge and always will be. You will never,

ever have to pay for Kali Linux.

6.3 Open source Git tree:

All of the source code which goes into Kali Linux is available for anyone who wants to tweak or

rebuild packages to suit their specific needs.

6.4 FHS compliant:

Kali adheres to the File system Hierarchy Standard, allowing Linux users to easily locate

binaries, support files, libraries, etc.

6.5 Wide-ranging wireless device support:

Developers built Kali Linux to support as many wireless devices as we possibly can.

6.6 Custom kernel, patched for injection:

As penetration testers, the development team often needs to do wireless assessments, so kali

kernel has the latest injection patches included.

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6.7 Developed in a secure environment:
The Kali Linux team is made up of a small group of individuals who are the only ones trusted to

commit packages and interact with the repositories.

6.8 GPG signed packages and repositories:

Every package in Kali Linux is signed by each individual developer who built and committed it,

and the repositories subsequently sign the packages as well.

6.9 Multi-language support:

Although penetration tools tend to be written in English, development team ensured that Kali

includes true multilingual support.

6.10 Completely customizable:

Developers made it as easy as possible for users to customize Kali Linux to their liking.

6.11 ARMEL and ARMHF support:

Kali Linux is available on a wide range of ARM devices and has ARM repositories.

Recommendations
Kali Linux has gained a lot of popularity recently. And there’s a reason for that. Hacking is back

as the cool thing to do in popular culture. But Kali Linux was certainly not designed for general

purposes. Look at the Kali Linux tools and you’ll find that many of them relate to “hacking”. If

you really want to use Kali Linux then firstly deeply understand Linux. And you must learn

Linux commands and its structure then you will walk through Kali Linux.

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 References
What is Kali Linux? | Kali Linux documentation. (n.d.). Kali Linux | Penetration Testing and Ethical
Hacking Linux Distribution. https://www.kali.org/docs/introduction/what-is-kali-linux/
Rungta, K. (n.d.). What is operating system? Types of OS & features. Meet Guru99 - Free Training
Tutorials & Video for IT Courses. https://www.guru99.com/operating-system-tutorial.html
Ethical hacking. (n.d.). EC-Council. https://www.eccouncil.org/ethical-hacking/
Importance of ethical hacking in today's world. (2019, December 20).
Edureka. https://www.edureka.co/blog/importance-of-ethical-hacking/
Ten reasons why we should use Linux. (2020, March 31). Open Source For
You. https://www.opensourceforu.com/2020/03/reasons-to-use-linux/
6 reasons why Linux is better than Windows for servers. (2017, December
14). https://www.tecmint.com/why-linux-is-better-than-windows-for-servers/
Most popular Linux distributions and why they dominate the market. (2015, June 2). StorageCraft
Technology Corporation. https://blog.storagecraft.com/popular-linux-distributions-dominate-market/
Hertzog, R., O'Gorman, J., & Aharoni, M. (2017). Kali Linux revealed: Mastering the penetration testing
distribution.

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