The Helix team has announced the release and immediate availability of the latest version of their Linux Distribution, called Helix 2008R1, but which is actually Helix 2.0. This version comes with a lot of changes over the previous release, both new additions and updated packages.

Let's have a closer look at some of the most important!

Updates:

· No longer based on Knoppix;
· aimage 3.1.0 - Advanced disk imager;
· chkrootkit 0.47-1 - find out if the system has a rootkit infection;
· clamav 0.92.1 - GPL antivirus scanner;
· md5deep 3.1 - Calculate MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, Tiger, Whirlpool message digests;
· Wireshark 1.0.2-1 - Network protocol analyzer.  

New additions:

· Based on Ubuntu;
· winlockpwn 1.0 - a tool to bypass windows authentication using firewire;
· gtkhash 0.2.0.1 - a GTK+ application used for computing message digests;
· bioskbsnarf 1.0 - a python program designed to parse and print the bios keyboard interrupt buffer in the real mode;
· bless 0.6.0 - a hex editor with read/write support for block devices.

For more information on the packages included, see the official release notes.

About Helix:

Helix is a Linux distribution best suited for those working in fields such as incident response, live forensics and e-discovery. It features a very versatile Live CD that has been specially crafted to leave the host computer intact, while featuring the basic functionality like customized kernels and great hardware detection.

The main focus of Helix is Forensics tools and Incident Response, for which it provides several applications, therefore we could say that this isn't an average, general purpose Linux distro. This is, in fact, more of a specialized OS, customized and designed to best meet the needs of individuals who already have Forensic and Incident Response basic knowledge.

Download Helix 2008R1 right now from Softpedia.