[RFC] Hardware for Pen Testing (Kali Linux)

Hackerspace Information Security
#1

I am trying to learn Kali Linux as part of Pen testing training.
Instead of creating a VM, I wanted to see if I can buy some cheap hardware and install Kali Linux.

Can you suggest one?

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#2

Kali will install on the smallest of requirements. I have it on an old asus eee and it works great

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#3

I would love to get in on some training. Any ideas of classes?
Perhaps, we could do an install and general use class for Kali Linux.

#4

would Raspberry Pi suffice?
Do you know wether Kali is compute intensive or memory intensive?

#5

I would use RPi 3+ or better yet an atom based x86. Just really depends on what your attempting to do?

metasploit requires at lease 512Mb + 128Mb for linux and 128Mb for tcp/ip.

hash cracking (wpa/wifi passwords) takes a lot of cpu and works better with cuda.

Phishing, well a Pi running nginx+php+mysql would handle the load well as headless and on the network. Same goes for as a reverse proxy / pivot point.

Again depends on your goal, target, and tools. Kali is just ubuntu + opensource toolkits. And to run all if it at one time their documentation states:

Requirements

  • Kali Linux requires a minimum of 20GB hard disk space for installation.
  • A minimum of 1GB RAM for i386 and AMD64 architectures.
  • A bootable CD-DVD drive or a USB stick.

And to be clear if your learning to hack; don’t its about hacking to learn. If one is wanting to learn a technology, kali is ok as a collection and tool in the field but is the worst thing to learn the tools to pentest. It would be better to get a $15 HP Netbook (and yes this is the same one I use for pentesting) then install black arch or ubuntu, then install metasploit / social engineering toolkit, openssh and nmap/orphcrack. One can do a lot more with that setup than with the twenty+ tools that does the same thing in kali.

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#6

Our first CTF did that and if your up for it we can post a second round after the Ubuntu Install fest (that way we get the latest version of kali too)

#7

This was on my recommended list on YouTube …

#8

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#10

Yes, I know enough to use it for small utilities.

#11

The “Penetration Testing with Raspberry Pi - Second Edition” title implies some level of usability, has some basic setup and Kali help, and is free for the next few hours. https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning

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#12

0% is still a percent. Not that RPis are not good computing machine just that they are bottlenecked by the available ram. So one can only preform one or two tasks a a time while pen testing with one. So I would say they’re more like 10% useable in headless cli mode.

The thing to remember is if one is pentesting their going to remote locations and need a reliable laptop with them plus a backup unit. The usual use case for a pi on a site is after a physical entrance breach one installed a pi for tapping into the edge gateway and another somewhere to act as a personal VPN (via a reverse shell [meterpiter, ssh -R …])

#13

Looks like Nexus 5-10 are supported:

http://www.wirelesshack.org/kali-linux-compatible-tablets-and-smartphones.html

And the nexus 5’s are starting to go for a steel of $35.00:

[RFC] Hacking the InfoSec Track