Kali Linux
Debian-based distribution built for penetration testing and security auditing
Last verified September 4, 2026
Kali Linux is the most widely used penetration testing distribution, maintained by Offensive Security. It bundles several hundred security tools spanning reconnaissance, exploitation, forensics, wireless auditing, and reverse engineering, organized into installable metapackages so you can pull in only the categories you need.
Kali is intended for authorized security testing, security research, and education. Only use it against systems you own or are explicitly authorized to test — see the disclaimer.
Notable bundled tools
aircrack-ng
Wireless WEP/WPA cracking utilities
autopsy
Graphical interface to SleuthKit
burpsuite
Platform for security testing of web applications
ettercap
Multipurpose sniffer/interceptor/logger for switched LAN
hydra
Very fast network logon cracker
impacket
Python3 module to easily build and dissect network protocols
john
Active password cracking tool
metasploit-framework
Framework for exploit development and vulnerability research
nikto
Web server security scanner
nmap
The Network Mapper
set
Social-Engineer Toolkit
wireshark
Network traffic analyzer - graphical interface
Getting started
Kali ships as installer ISOs, a live image, ARM images, WSL, and pre-built virtual machine images for VMware/VirtualBox. For most newcomers, the official virtual machine images are the fastest safe way to start: import the image into VirtualBox or VMware and boot straight into a full desktop with the tool set pre-installed. The official documentation covers installation, the `kali-tweaks` configuration tool, and how to install specific tool metapackages (e.g. `kali-tools-wireless`) instead of the full set.