Kali users worldwide have so much to celebrate. With a huge list of changes and updates released over the last week, developers will find the new and improved version a huge relief from their existing version. Even more, Kali plans to release weekly releases to quickly correct and improve their platform and also let users to choose their versions to download as well.

Xfce and KDE Updates in Kali 2021

As you may know, there are plenty of ways to use Kali. With local or remote setups, you could either use graphical UI or use command line to interact with Kali. These options are complemented by the desktop environment users choose to run.

Kali’s default GUI is Xfce, but you could choose GNOME, KDE or no GUI during the setup process. There are provisions that users could use to install even more.

Kali Linux 2021 Terminal

Command lines are all that users see for the most part when they us Kali. in that, local terminals are usually the go to place for most users than a console or remote SSH. With desktop environments, there are new possibilities to personalize(xfce4-terminal, tmux, tilix, konsole, qterminal, and mate-terminal) them the Kali way.

Command Not Found – Finding Commands that didn’t want to be found

Users may know that Kali had changed the default set of tools installed a while ago. Users either installed a one-off package or get the old set of defaults(apt install kali-linux-large). But they have now added command-not-found by default, which is a completely optional package that can removed without taking out all of kali-linux-default.

Without command-not-found installed, you’ll see

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~] └─$ gitleaks gitleaks: command not found

With command-not-found , you’ll see

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~] └─$ gitleaks Command 'gitleaks' not found, but can be installed with: sudo apt install gitleaks
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~] └─$ gitleakss Command 'gitleakss' not found, did you mean: command 'gitleaks' from deb gitleaks Try: sudo apt install <deb name>
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~] └─$ badcmd badcmd: command not found

gitleaks – If the command you entered is the name of an executable available in Kali, it will say the package that you need to install.
gitleakss – This command is especially useful if you make typos on a daily basis. it suggests the correct command for you
badcmd – for all commands that are invalid, you will get the original message – “command not found”.

You’ll get this feature if you do a fresh install of Kali Linux 2021.1 or later. You can also get the feature by updating Kali if you are using a Bash shell. Yet another way to get this is is by updating Kali while using a Zsh shell and adding the following couple of lines of code to your ~/.zshrc

# enable command-not-found if installed if [ -f /etc/zsh_command_not_found ]; then . /etc/zsh_command_not_found fi

New Tools in Kali Linux 2021.1

There’s a couple of new tool authors that Kali is collaborating with apart from byt3bl33d3r. BC Security and Joohoi are the notable new addition to the core contributors bringing access to “Empire”(powershell-empire), Starkiller and “Fuzz Faster U Fool”(ffuf) respectively.

There’s a ton of new tools added to the network repositories that users can take full advantage of. Here’s a list of latest tools in Kali.

Airgeddon – Audit wireless networks
AltDNS – Generates permutations, alterations and mutations of subdomains and then resolves them
Arjun – HTTP parameter discovery suite
Chisel – A fast TCP/UDP tunnel over HTTP
DNSGen – Generates combination of domain names from the provided input
DumpsterDiver – Search secrets in various filetypes
GetAllUrls – Fetch known URLs from AlienVault’s Open Threat Exchange, the Wayback Machine, and Common Crawl
GitLeaks – Searches Git repo’s history for secrets and keys
HTTProbe – Take a list of domains and probe for working HTTP and HTTPS servers
MassDNS – A high-performance DNS stub resolver for bulk lookups and reconnaissance
PSKracker – WPA/WPS toolkit for generating default keys/pins
WordlistRaider – Preparing existing wordlists

WiFi Adapters Supported by Kali Linux 2021.1

Kali Linux 2021 is updated with some neat hardware support including some WiFi Adapters to play around with WiFi networks. Here is a list of WiFi Adapter For Kali Linux that is compatible with the Latest Kali Linux, which can go into monitor mode, inject packets and perform everything that is needed for a full-fledged WiFi Penetration Testing.

Kali’s website

One major change that users may find interesting would be the total revamp of their website. The current Kali.org website is made from Hugo and will have a rolling distribution.

Previously, users relied on RSS feed or Kali’s blog to gain critical information about updates and releases. With the new website, users not only get a stable location for all their Kali needs, but a future option to collaborate through GitLab.

New versions will feel incomplete without some well deserved wallpaper addition for Kali’s beloved fans. Here are their latest wallpaper packages:

Download Kali Linux 2021.1

You can start downloading this version of Kali right away, but there’s also another way to do things. Kali produces weekly builds for users who need latest packages and can’t wait for future releases.

Users who download the image can use weekly images for another purpose as well. As these versions are bug fixed and released every week, users can choose what version of Kali to run and choose not to go for future updates altogether.

If you already have a Kali linux installation, a quick update would do the trick as well.

Latest Kali ARM Updates

Kali have brought in their latest installers and live ISOs (kali-linux-2021.1-installer-arm64.iso and kali-linux-2021.1-live-arm64.iso) that could work on Apple Silicon Macs. Here’s a short video on how it all works

Watch this video on YouTube

Another major update is the addition of support for the Raspberry Pi 400’s wireless card. This is not to be confused with a nexmon firmware, as nexmon doesn’t currently support it.

Kali NetHunter Updates

As you may know, Kali nethunter uses BusyBox internally to ensure Nethunter tools and commands are executed without fail across all versions of Android and other vendor modifications. In their latest version, they have introduced a much-needed upgrade titled 1.32.0-nethunter.

This latest BusyBox upgrade helps developers to port their code to NetHunter without any difficulty. There’s also an additional section in the settings menu for developers to choose BusyBox versions for testing purposes.

Overview of the new changelog

Xfce 4.16 – Our preferred and current default desktop environment has been updated and tweaked
KDE 5.20 – Plasma also received a version bump
Terminals – mate-terminal, terminator and tilix all had various work carried out on them
Command Not Found – A helping hand to say if a program needs to be installed
Partnership with more tool authors – BC Security & Joohoi have been producing great tools and we want to support them
New tools & updates – Multiple new tools have been added to Kali and are ready for you
Kali NetHunter – New BusyBox & Rucky version, and boot-animation
Kali ARM – Preliminary support for Parallels on Apple Silicon (Apple M1) & Raspberry Pi 400 (WiFi Support)