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10 Best Security Live CD Distros
Ant writes to tell us Darknet has a summary of the ten best LiveCD distributions dealing with security. With links to download and a little information about each one." An great overview of some handy tools, some you know and probably a few you don't.
I've used Auditor extensively in the past year or so, and played around with Slax. Slax is buggy and definitely lacking polish, but it's modular system of scripts and packages make it perfect for a combination of whoppix and Auditor. Now if only proper ndiswrapper modules were included...
Death by snoo-snoo!
I suppose it's probably safe to trust that the makers of your LiveCD aren't putting little rootkits into the image that automatically get installed to the existing OS image on the hard disk.
LiveCDs are great, but always make sure that the source is trustworthy or you may end up with a bootable CD with Tubgirl as the desktop background. That wouldn't be pleasant. Especially in front of a customer.
it lacked ndiswrapper kernel module though it had ndiswrapper installed. Made it impossible to use it with my wireless network. If it ships with ndiis wrapper it should have had ndiswrapper module or atleast some source where it could be compiled.
They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. -Nathaniel Lee
Even worse, the editor added that comment, as it's outside the quote. Well, at least I assume that's the ending quotation mark, seeing as there's no beginning quotation mark. It is late, maybe he's half asleep.
Taco recently editorialized that /. should retain its character; evidently, ceaseless typos and brutal grammar provide a significant part of that.
/. - accounting, IT, marketing, and so on - as willfully half-assed? For the sake of your business, Taco, I hope not.
Is the rest of
HTH
you philistine!
..."
the word "great" is pronounced with a silent "g", a silent "r" and a silent "e".
It's spelt "great" but it's pronounced "at", therefore it's "an great
It is late,
:-)
Maybe on your half of the planet.
Advantage of Live CD is that you can try it without installing anything into a computer. The disadvantage is its very slow and very limited in functionality. Very frustrating for every day use. Nothing can beat the performance of an installed version.
It is very good to be security conscious. If you really want to benefit by the advances in Unix, try a secure OS like Tomahawk Desktop.
Anybody got a mirror?
It's late in North America and more specifically the USA, which is where slashdot caters to due to the highest amount of visitors originating from there.
Still up for me?
Load Averages 8.31 6.93 6.18
Share your Knowlege - Kung-Fu Geekery
Coral Cache
1. BackTrack
2. Operator
3. PHLAK
4. Auditor
5. L.A.S Linux
6. Knoppix-STD
7. Helix
8. F.I.R.E
9. nUbuntu
10. INSERT Rescue Security Toolkit
Extra - Knoppix
OpenBSD nad NetBSD are the top two that came to mind at first for me, but apparently BSD didn't make the list at all. I wonder what that is about.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
If you are marketing yourself as a serious news outlet for technical news, then being sloppy with punctuation and grammar is not really something that looks good for your image.
TheHustler
http://www.elmarko.org/ - Useless bilge
http://www.asylum-games.co.uk/ - Co-Founder
"...e-penis..."
This is a product I haven't heard of before. I only have a regular penis myself. Perhaps you can enlighten me here:
- What advantages does an e-penis have over a regular penis?
- Can you e-mail it to your girlfriend every night when you are on business trips to keep her out of the arms of other men?
- Is driver support a problem?
- Can it be overclocked?
"10 Best Security Live CD Distros (Pen-Test, Forensics & Recovery)"
The BSD's are not Live CD Distros used for penetration-testing, forensics, or recovery.
My guess is that there are only two Live-CD BSD distributions (to the best of my knowledge, at least); freesbie (which isn't security oriented) and one from NetBSD (which I forget the name of, and I'm not even sure is being made any more). There is no Live-CDs from the OpenBSD camp at all.
The article (and therefore, discussion) is about Live-CDs.
What about that OpenBSD-based live CD? Isn't that a top security OS?
Or is this thing only for Linux?
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
OpenBSD and FreeBSD have live distros. Don't know about NetBSD. Google is your friend.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Are they made for Pen-Test, Forensics & Recovery?
\m/
It's crappy in terms of security. Runs the ssh daemon by default.
with NetBSD you can build your own. there also is some desktop centric live cd called NeWBIE
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
Those who don't know whether to use "a" or "an" are functionally illiterate and, obviously, should not be employed as editors.
Although it's not a linux distribution, surely any live CD based on OpenBSD deserves a mention!
Immediatly I tried to choose the first LiveCD, just known like Whoppix. I have download the ISO image, I choose the fix and I clicked a link for the FIX installer..... Our first barrier (Sym Web Sceurity) cannot see a malformed html page, I was lucky. I'm using a VM virtual machine with XP. The VM crashed. The HTML page started: - Win32/Worfo 2 times - Win32/MS05-002!exploit 1 time - JS/MS05-054!exploit 8 times Good luck
why would you run X on a server at all? seems like a bit of a waste of resources if you ask me.
though if it crashes, other programs usually keep running anyway...
Yeah, I noticed this when i doubled-back and read the article in depth. i read the summary, and looked over the list and was astonished when neither of these BSD distros was mentioned, as they are pretty well known for being a high security distribution.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
I've found instructions on doing this for some distros (including Knoppix I think), but the step-by-step was too long and involved.
I agree, rain when you're weeding is terrible, the vegetable patch gets really muddy and you end up with flu. I tend to go and find something else to do, like mess around with linux distros on my spare computer. Watch yourself in that damp weather!
Don't know about security though. But since Xgl is fairly new I wouldn't trust it in a server.
You have missed the point. If it weren't for my unshakeable faith in the Slashdot community, I might even suspect you of not having read the article.
This is about Live CDs designed for security auditing, not the security of Live CDs. Although Nmap with OpenGL support would be pretty cool - watching thousands of Phong shaded, texture mapped SYN packets flying at the target host and either bouncing off or penetrating would make my day. Someone page Dan Kaminsky - he's great at cool shit like that.
Yeah, I noticed this when i doubled-back and read the article in depth. i read the summary, and looked over the list and was astonished when neither of these BSD distros was mentioned, as they are pretty well known for being a high security distribution.
If you read the article so thoroughly, how did you miss the fact that it was about Live CDs used for security testing? The BSD Live CDs may well be very secure, but they do not come with hundreds of auditing tools. They are therefore out of scope for the article.
Uh, you noticed his username right?
Why do you insist on using a split infinitive? You also eschew the word "The". A better sentence would surely be "An apostrophe in your given context denotes possession, which severely breaks the sentence structure."
thedletterman - Sorry about the above flame. I misread your comment - obviously you did notice. That does make you the odd one out though...
How difficult would it have been to change this to "A great"?
As difficult as it would be for some to not harp on a simple typo?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The best one I've found is Insert Linux. Once you download, burn, and boot from the ISO, there's a menu option in fluxbox to install to a usb key. All you have to do is make sure the the first partition on the drive is at least 64MB and it'll do the rest for you, formatting the partition, copying files, and installing the bootloader. I haven't used it a whole lot, but they pack a lot into 60MB.
OpenBSD and FreeBSD have live distros. Don't know about NetBSD. Google is your friend.
What part of 10 Best Security Live CD Distros (Pen-Test, Forensics & Recovery) did you not understand? The ones reviewed are geared towards forensic analysis and such, not just a secure OS in general. From what Google tells me, there aren't any live BSD systems that fit the article's title.
LOAD ".SIG"
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
I am suprised that they did not include Adios. The nicest feature is the ability to run multiple Linux kernels in userspace (User Mode Linux). It also comes with heaps of security tools on the LiveCD.
Can you read this?
Olny srmat poelpe can.
cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
I'm pretty sure the title should read
"The Only Ten Security LiveCD Distros, and we Kind of Stretched The Word Security on Three of Them."
The Ultimate Boot CD is a nice collection of memory, CPU, partition, filesystem, benchmarking, and BIOS utilities, and the "full" version of the UBCD contains INSERT as well as all of the other stuff. Quite a nice collection of utilities and diagnostic software on one CD.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
There is a NetBSD live CD called NeWBIE (Newbie). Right now its focus is on the desktop user but it will be used as a base for creating a NetBSD pentest live CD. Ironically, it is made by people who also make a Linux live CD for pentesting called Arudius. Search Google for "arudius" or check this link. Both CDs are described there.
It makes your pompous, patronizing tone much less effective when you spell "grammar" as "grammer".
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
fizzle bar to dog taco lick? .NET's C++ variant isn't reall C++ because it lacks features A, B, & C. [ I have forgotten the specifics at the moment.]) Why can they understand that computer programming requires an inflexible syntax, but think humans can communicate without any rules at all?
Couldn't understand that? Perhaps it is because it was gibberish. Perhaps had we agreed on some basic rules of communication it would have been intelligible. But then that would make us "grammar nazis" wouldn't it?
It drives me mad when people insist "don't need no grammer, us talk reel gud neway". Perhaps, for the moment. But without any rules for communication whatsoever we have no way to communicate at all
Worse still, the same people who whine about grammar (or often "grammer") nazis are the same people who exceptionally rigid about programming language syntax. (eg. A discussion in the recent past insisted
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
And before someone brings up the argument "You forgot the 'are" between 'who' and 'exceptionally', you ain't got no grammer nohow neither so shut up!", I know that the word was omitted. It was not intentional.
Boys from the City. Not yet caught by the Whirlwind of Progress. Feed soda pop to the thirsty pigs.
How difficult would it have been to add the word Linux in the title, so I wouldn't have bothered to read it?
Is not all that impressive to me.
Also, it seems to me that a rescue CD should not, by default, boot to a GUI. It slows down the boot, and is not that useful when GUI can not be loaded. People who use these should know how to use the command line.
Any sugestions for a security focused live cd that will run on a PPC chip.
Strangely enough, it's jumbled letters with the first and last letters in their proper place. Now suppose I used a "word" but introduced extra letters to it -- wraod...or worse, not using any letters that belong in the actual word except for the first and last...wezd -- we're back to not being able to read it. So yeah, though the example is drastic, spelling would still matter somewhat.
Because (most) humans are smarter than computers?
You know, this might have been an interesting post if it was coherent...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I just burnt backtrack to try it out, I booted the computer with the CD, it looked decent. then I rebooted into windows to write down my IP address, but the second time I tried to boot from the CD it got stuck in the hotplug hardware detection phase. I tried this sequence on another computer (exactly the same) and the same thing happened(first time it worked, second time failed to boot due to the same thing). THIS IS VERY WIERD, isn't it? is this thing writing anything on my hard dirve ?
otherwise how on earth can behave differently each time when it's read from a read only media ?? (CD-ROM)
uhh, you're kind of in the wrong place. Here, let me redirect you.
They call me the wookie man, I guess that's what I am
Looks like their DNS servers are not responding to my queries when I try to resolve www.darknet.org.uk. Does anyone have the IP address of that site? How about a copy of the article? The listed nameservers (ns[12].malaysiablogs.com) appear to be unresponsive.
One of the best features of a secure Live CD is that the read-only media prevents attacks from writing to the stored OS (on CD). I'd love to see a virtualization system that reloads the OS from the CD every so often (hours, minutes, seconds) and switches all processes to the new, more trustworthy instance.
Maybe a safer system will just reload a single watchdog instance from the CD, which checks itself against the other running instances.
Any difference would send an alarm out of the system.
Of course, the virtualization layer itself needs authenticity checks. But that might be possible against a CD image, and in any case would be no less secure than without this system I'm describing.
--
make install -not war
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i said on a SERVER, not a livecd
spelling _is_ important. Letter letter is not, thus if you are dislexic and invert letters you're likely A-OK
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
This is from the Slashback along time ago:
Anidroccg to crad cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd
utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of
the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl
cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr.
Translation:
According to card carrying linguistics professionals at an unnamed
university in British Columbia, and contrary to the dubious claims of
the uncited research, a simple, mechanical inversion of internal
characters appears sufficient to confuse the everyday onlooker.
I think that the confusing part in your example is more the constructs and not the words themselves. That is, if you combine a sentence structure and style that is not readily apparent to the reader with jumbled words, I agree that you can confuse the reader. You have to give some hints to the reader. The majority of your text was readable without too much issue, but I don't normally associate professionals with universities (professors, maybe) and "inversion of internal characters" doesn't just jump into my mind.
:-)
I would argue that it's easy enough to confuse an average reader with properly spelled words given a sufficiently complex sentence structure. All the same, it's still fun.
You misspelled rscheearch it should really be rscheearechr (or equivalent).
Let's say there's a WiFi AP with basic WEP at a bookstore near me, and let's say I want to crack it. Does one (or more) of these LiveCD distros include the necessary tools?
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Google is your friend.
In China, google is not.
Defining Statistics and Social Research