The Industry Standard

Kali Linux is not about its tools, nor the operating system. Kali Linux is a platform.

Generic laptop PC Kali Linux desktop

All the tools you need

The Kali Linux penetration testing platform contains a vast array of tools and utilities. From information gathering to final reporting, Kali Linux enables security and IT professionals to assess the security of their systems.

Find out all about Kali's Tools

Kali Everywhere

Undercover Mode

Using Kali in an environment where you don't want to draw attention to yourself? Kali Undercover is the perfect way to not stand out in a crowd.

Kali NetHunter

A mobile penetration testing platform for Android devices, based on Kali Linux. Kali NetHunter is made up of an App, App Store, Kali Container and KeX

Win-KeX

Win-KeX provides a full Kali Desktop Experience for Windows WSL. Applications started via Kali's panel will share the desktop with Microsoft Windows applications.

Choose the desktop you prefer

Xfce logoXfce

Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.

Xfce consists of separately packaged parts that together provide all functions of the desktop environment, but can be selected in subsets to suit user needs and preferences. This is Kali's default desktop environment.

Kali Linux with Xfce desktop
Kali Linux with GNOME desktop

GNOME logoGNOME Shell

Every part of GNOME Shell has been designed to make it simple and easy to use. The Activities Overview is an easy way to access all your basic tasks. A press of a button is all it takes to view your open windows, launch applications, or check if you have new messages. Having everything in one place is convenient and means that you don't have to learn your way through a maze of different technologies.

KDE logoKDE Plasma

Plasma is made to stay out of the way as it helps you get things done. But under its light and intuitive surface, it's a powerhouse. So you're free to choose ways of usage right as you need them and when you need them.

With Plasma the user is king. Not happy with the color scheme? Change it! Want to have your panel on the left edge of the screen? Move it! Don't like the font? Use a different one! Download custom widgets in one click and add them to your desktop or panel.

Kali Linux with KDE Plasma desktop

Latest news from our blog

Kali Linux 2022.3 Release (Discord & Test Lab)

In light of “Hacker Summer Camp 2022” (BlackHat USA, BSides LV, and DEFCON) occurring right now, we wanted to push out Kali Linux 2022.3 as a nice surprise for everyone to enjoy! With the publishing of this blog post, we have the download links ready for immediate access, or you can update any existing installation.

Secure Kali Pi (2022)

This is the first part of a 3 part series of blog posts surrounding Kali usage on Raspberry Pi devices. This first post will cover enabling Full Disk Encryption (FDE) on a Raspberry Pi, part two will cover remotely connecting to it, and finally, part three will cover debugging issues we ran into while making these posts, so others can learn how to do so as well.

Weekly Virtual Machines, with Build Scripts

We have always made all our build-scripts public. These are the same set of tools which we use to generate Kali Linux (for each release, or our weekly images). You may have noticed that previously there wasn’t anything about Virtual Machines (VMs). This is because until recently it was a manually done process, which followed our guides (VMware & VirtualBox).

Kali Linux in Linode's Cloud

A few months ago, Linode reached out to us asking “What would be needed in order to get Kali added to Linode?”. We explained to them how all the build-scripts that we used to create Kali are public, and what their different options and configurations mean. They went away and came back shortly with an image for us to try out!