14 DAY TRIAL // BackBox Linux is a distribution based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS that's used to perform penetration tests and security assessments. A new update has been released, bringing the version number up to 4.3.
This might now seem like the kind of operating system that gets a lot of updates, but the latest version of BackBox Linux was released all the way back in April. The developers used that time to make some important upgrades to the distribution, and many of the core components have received improvements.
As it stands right now, BackBox Linux 4.3 is just a maintenance update for the OS, but its users need to get it. It's not all about the small fixes and various security issues that have been corrected. Packages like the Linux kernel have been upgraded as well, and that's the kind of change that you really need.
There aren't too many distros out there tailored for penetration testing and it's a select club with operating systems like Kali, DEFT, of the famous BackTrack, which no longer supported, but it's still being used extensively.
What changes have been made to BackBox Linux 4.3
"BackBox is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. It has been developed to perform penetration tests and security assessments. Designed to be fast, easy to use and provide a minimal yet complete desktop environment, thanks to its own software repositories, always being updated to the latest stable version of the most used and best known ethical hacking tools," reads the official announcement.
According to the changelog, the Linux kernel has been updated to version 3.16, Ruby has been upgraded to version 2.1, the installer now comes with LVM and Full Disk Encryption options, a number of upstream components have been integrated, the Anonymous mode has been improved, and a few new tools have been added (beef-project, btscanner, dirs3arch, metasploit-framework, ophcrack, setoolkit, TOR, weevely, wpscan).
You can also download the ISO images for BackBox Linux 4.3 from Softpedia and give it a try. If you already have the distro installed, you can run the following commands in terminal in order to upgrade it:
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install -f
sudo apt-get install linux-image-generic-lts-utopic linux-headers-generic-lts-utopic linux-signed-image-generic-lts-utopic
sudo apt-get purge ri1.9.1 ruby1.9.1 ruby1.9.3 bundler
sudo gem cleanup
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/gems/1.*
sudo apt-get install backbox-default-settings backbox-desktop backbox-tools --reinstall
sudo apt-get install beef-project metasploit-framework whatweb wpscan setoolkit --reinstall
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge