Kali Linux, The Most Advanced Penetration Testing Distribution. Ever.
Open remote profile ↗Kali Linux 2026.2 Release (GNOME 50, KDE 6.6, Helper Scripts, APT Formats & VM Boot Tweaking):
It’s the final week of Q2, and Kali Linux 2026.2 is here - right on schedule ;) We have been heads down since our last release, and we are ready to share what…
https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-linu
x-2026-2-release/
Kali Linux 2026.1 Release (2026 Theme & BackTrack Mode)
Kali LinuxKali Linux 2026.1 Release (2026 Theme & BackTrack Mode) | Kali Linux BlogNew year, new release - Kali 2026.1 is here! There is everything from a fresh coat of paint to a nod to our roots, with normal ongoing improvements.
Building on from December’s 2025.4, the summary of the changelog:
2026 Theme Refresh - Our yearly theme refresh
BackTrack Mode For Kali-Undercover - New mode celebrating BackTrack’s 20th anniversary
Kali’s 13th Birthday Event - A little community eve
Kali & LLM: Completely local with Ollama & 5ire: We are extending our LLM-driven Kali series, where natural language replaces manual command input. This time however, we are doing everything locally and offline. We are using our own hardware and not... https://kali.org/blog/kali-llm-ollama-5ire/
Kali LinuxKali & LLM: Completely local with Ollama & 5ire | Kali Linux BlogWe are extending our LLM-driven Kali series, where natural language replaces manual command input. This time however, we are doing everything locally and offline. We are using our own hardware and not relying on any 3rd party services/SaaS.
Kali & LLM: macOS with Claude Desktop GUI & Anthropic Sonnet LLM: This post will focus on an alternative method of using Kali Linux, moving beyond direct terminal command execution. Instead, we will leverage a Large Language Model (LLM) to translate… https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-llm-claude-desktop/
Kali LinuxKali & LLM: macOS with Claude Desktop & Anthropic Sonnet LLM | Kali Linux BlogThis post will focus on an alternative method of using Kali Linux, moving beyond direct terminal command execution. Instead, we will leverage a Large Language Model (LLM) to translate “natural language” descriptions of desired actions into technical commands. Achieving this setup requires the integration of three distinct systems:
Kali Linux 2025.4 Release (Desktop Environments, Wayland & Halloween Mode)
Kali LinuxKali Linux 2025.4 Release (Desktop Environments, Wayland & Halloween Mode) | Kali Linux BlogSay hello to Kali Linux 2025.4!
Expect updated tools, performance tweaks, and improved support - no fluff, just the essentials.
The summary of the changelog since the 2025.3 release from September is:
Desktop Environments - Changes to all! GNOME, KDE & Xfce
Wayland - VM Guest Utils Support
Halloween Mode - dresses the desktop for the occasion
3 New Tools - As always, new packages added and upgrad
We are starting our Kali/Hacker-themed #Pumpkin #Carving #Contest!
Share your masterpiece, tag us, and whoever on whichever social network has the most reactions will get $50 store credit (https://offsec.usa.dowlis.com/kali/view-all.html).
Ends 1st Nov 2025 00:00 UTC
Kali Linux 2025.3 Release (Vagrant & Nexmon)
Kali LinuxKali Linux 2025.3 Release (Vagrant & Nexmon) | Kali Linux BlogAnother quarter, another drop - Kali 2025.3 is now here! Bringing you another round of updates, new features and introducing some new tools - pushing Kali further.
The summary of the changelog since the 2025.2 release from June is:
Packer & Vagrant - HashiCorp’s products have had a refresh
Nexmon Support - Monitor mode and injection for Raspberry Pi’s in-built Wi-Fi
10 New Tools - As always, vari
Kali Vagrant Rebuilt: Out With Packer, In With DebOS: Vagrant files, *.box, are pre-configured Virtual Machines (VM) VM images, which when imported into HashiCorp’s Vagrant, allow for VMs to be interacted with via the command line.
You create, start, interact, stop, destroy VMs all without leaving…
Kali LinuxKali Vagrant Rebuilt: Out With Packer, In With DebOS | Kali Linux BlogVagrant files, *.box, are pre-configured Virtual Machines (VM) VM images, which when imported into HashiCorp’s Vagrant, allow for VMs to be interacted with via the command line.
You create, start, interact, stop, destroy VMs all without leaving the terminal. Think containers (Docker/Podman), but for VMs.
Previously we have been using HashiCorp’s Packer to generate our HashiCorp’s Vagrant images.
Kali Linux & Containerization (Apple's Container): If you’re an Apple user, you may have heard of Apple’s upcoming feature Containerization during WWDC 2025.
https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-apple-container-containerization/
Kali LinuxKali Linux & Containerization (Apple's Container) | Kali Linux BlogIf you’re an Apple user, you may have heard of Apple’s upcoming feature Containerization during WWDC 2025.
Quick summary:
Container is a CLI tool, which works with Containerization. This is what end-users interact with.
Containerization handles creating the containers, that talks to Virtualization.framework.
Virtualization.framework is the hypervisor API (high level), and creates a new VM per con
The Raspberry Pi's Wi-Fi Glow-Up: Thanks to Nexmon and fresh Kali packages, onboard wireless is ready for monitor mode and injection (again!).
Kali LinuxThe Raspberry Pi's Wi-Fi Glow-Up | Kali Linux BlogThanks to Nexmon and fresh Kali packages, on-board wireless is ready for monitor mode and injection (again!).
Kali Linux users on Raspberry Pi now have an improved and more integrated way to use the on-board Wi-Fi interface for wireless assessments. While the Nexmon project has long made this technically possible, our support in Kali has recently been refined.
Kali Linux 2025.2 Release (Kali Menu Refresh, BloodHound CE & CARsenal)
https://www.kali.org/blog/kali-linux-2025-2-release/
Kali LinuxKali Linux 2025.2 Release (Kali Menu Refresh, BloodHound CE & CARsenal) | Kali Linux BlogWe’re almost half way through 2025 already, and we’ve got a lot to share with you in this release, Kali 2025.2.
The summary of the changelog since the 2025.1 release from March is:
Desktop Updates - Kali-Menu refresh, GNOME 48 & KDE 6.3 updates
BloodHound Community Edition - Major upgrade with full set of ingestors
Kali NetHunter Smartwatch Wi-Fi Injection - TicWatch Pro 3 now able to de-authenti
For more than 20 years, @osuosl has been providing critical infrastructure for major FOSS projects. In particular, it hosts Kali Linux ARM build servers and GitLab runners: https://www.kali.org/blog/ampere/.
Now they are facing a difficult time and need help to keep going. To learn more, please read the announcement from its director Lance Albertson: https://osuosl.org/blog/osl-future/
Kali LinuxAmpere Hardware & Kali Linux | Kali Linux BlogWhen Ampere partnered with Debian, this caught our eye. We were aware that our current ARM cloud provider was soon ending support for arm64 servers (which we use for our build daemons).
At Kali Linux, one of the things which is important to us, is that we prefer not having to cross-compile our ARM binaries that we ship in our Kali packages. There are various reasons as to why, some of them are:
⚠️ Warning ⚠️
Kali has a new signing key! 🔑
(Manual action required! 🫣)
If you are getting:
> Missing key 827C8569F2518CC677FECA1AED65462EC8D5E4C5, which is needed to verify signature.
You need to download and install the new key manually, here’s the one-liner:
```
sudo wget https://archive.kali.org/archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/kali-archive-keyring.gpg
```
Blog post: A New Kali Linux Archive Signing Key ~ https://www.kali.org/blog/new-kali-archive-signing-key/
Kali LinuxA New Kali Linux Archive Signing Key | Kali Linux BlogTL;DR
Bad news for Kali Linux users! In the coming day(s), apt update is going to fail for pretty much everyone out there:
Missing key 827C8569F2518CC677FECA1AED65462EC8D5E4C5, which is needed to verify signature.
Reason is, we had to roll a new signing key for the Kali repository. You need to download and install the new key manually, here’s the one-liner: