Kali Linux has released version 2024.4, the fourth and final version of 2024, and it is now available with fourteen new tools, numerous improvements, and deprecates some features.
Kali Linux is a distribution created for cybersecurity professionals and ethical hackers to perform penetration testing, ethical hacking, vulnerability research, security audits, and red team exercises.
With this final release of 2024, the Kali Team brings increased Raspberry Pi support, a new default Python version, and the end of i386 builds.
Fourteen new tools in Kali Linux 2024.4
It is not a new Kali release without new tools to play with, and Kali 2024.4 does not disappoint.
The fourteen new tools released in this release are:
bloodyad – Active Directory privilege escalation framework (Submitted by @Arszilla)
certi – Ask for certificates to ADCS and discover templates (Submitted by @Arszilla)
chainsaw – Rapidly search and hunt through Windows forensic artefacts (Submitted by @Arszilla)
findomain – Fastest and most complete solution for domain recognition (Submitted by @Arszilla)
hexwalk – Hex analyzer, editor and viewer
linkedin2username – Generate username lists for companies on LinkedIn
mssqlpwner – Interact and pwn MSSQL servers
openssh-ssh1 – Secure SHell (SSH) client for legacy SSH1 protocol
proximoth – Control frame attack vulnerability detection tool (Submitted by @TechnicalUserX)
python-pipx – Execute binaries from Python packages in isolated environments
sara – RouterOS Security Inspector (Submitted by @casterbyte)
web-cache-vulnerability-scanner – Go-based CLI tool for testing for web cache poisoning (Submitted by @Arszilla)
xsrfprobe – An advanced Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF/XSRF) audit and exploitation toolkit.
zenmap – The Network Mapper (nmap) front end (zenmap-kbx is no longer needed!)
Kali says they also bumped the Linux Kernel to version 6.11.
The end of the i386 kernel and images
With the release of Kali 2024.4, there will no longer be any i386 images released as Debian, which Kali is based on, dropped support for 32-bit builds in October.
However, as 32-bit programs can still run on the x86-64 images, Kali Linux has not removed any i386 packages from the distro.
“Despite being long obsolete, this architecture remained supported in software for years. 2019 was the year when major Linux distributions (Fedora 31 & Ubuntu) started to drop it. Finally, in October 2024, Debian stopped building a i386 kernel (and OS images, as a consequence). Kali Linux, being based on Debian, follow suit: images and releases will no longer be created for this platform.
It’s important to note that this is not an instant death for i386 though. This is not how architectures die. The i386 kernel and images are gone, however i386 packages in general are not removed from the repository. It means that it’s still possible to run i386 programs on a 64-bit system. Either directly via the package manager (APT supports installation of i386 packages on a amd64 system), or via i386 Docker images.”
❖ The Kali Team
New default Python version 3.12
With this release, Python version 3.12 is now the default Python interpreter, and installing packages via pip command is disallowed by default.
As explained by the Kali Team in July 2023, running pip as root to install system-wide packages can cause conflicts with a distro’s built-in package manager, like apt.
“There is a major change with this new Python version: installing third-party Python packages via pip is now strongly discouraged and disallowed by default,” explains the Kali Team.
“This change has been coming for a long time, we wrote about it 18 months ago already, been given little reminders in each release blog post since and we gave another push about it in the 2024.3 release blog post. Now it’s finally effective.”
For those who wish to use a program like pip, Kali now includes a pipx command that acts as a replacement. Instructions on using the pipx command can be found here.
SSH DSA keys are now deprecated
Kali Linux 2024.4 comes with OpenSSH (9.8p1), which deprecates SSH DSA keys.
For those who need to support older keys for legacy systems, the new build includes the SSH1 client, which the Kali team says is an SSH client frozen at version 7.5.
However, the developers warn that if you are using tools that do not know about the ssh1 command, they will no longer work properly with legacy systems requiring DSA keys.
“If you target very old SSH servers, you might need to use this client, assuming you are using the SSH client directly from the command-line,” explains the Kali Team.
“However, if you use it indirectly (via some tool that uses SSH), it’s possible that the tool does not know about the ssh1 command, so in practice you will lose support for DSA keys with this new Kali release. If you are in this situation, talk to us (via our our Discord server or our bug tracker), and we might be able to help.”
Increased Raspberry Pi Imager support
The Raspberry Pi Imager is a tool that allows you to find supported Raspberry Pi images and easily write them to a microSD card.
With this release of Kali Linux, you can now use the imager to pre-configure settings that will automatically be applied to the Kali Linux Raspberry Pi image when it’s written to the microSD card.
These settings can include a custom hostname, login credentials, SSH keys, Wi-Fi network configuration, and locale settings, making it much easier to get the image set up as needed before it’s ever booted up for the first time.
Raspberry Pi Imager support
Raspberry Pi Imager support
Source: Kali
Desktop changes
With this release, Kali Linux includes the Gnome 47 desktop environment and greater support for color customization.
“We are excited to announce that the latest update to the GNOME Desktop, GNOME 47, is now available!,” announced the Kali Team.
“This update brings numerous changes and desktop enhancements, but the most notable feature is the new support for accent color customization. You can now choose your favorite color for window and shell widgets, giving you more control over your desktop’s look and feel.”
The developers also introduced a new system-monitor panel extension and login theme.
New Kali Linux 2024.4 login theme
New Kali Linux 2024.4 login theme
Source: Kali
How to get Kali Linux 2024.4
To start using Kali Linux 2024.4, you can upgrade your existing installation, select a platform, or directly download ISO images for new installs and live distributions.
For those updating from a previous version, you can use the following commands to upgrade to the latest version.
echo “deb https://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free non-free-firmware” | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade
cp -vrbi /etc/skel/. ~/
[ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f
If you are running Kali on the Windows Subsystem for Linux, upgrade to WSL2 for a better experience, including the ability to use graphical apps.
You can check the WSL version used by Kali with the ‘wsl -l -v’ command in a Windows command prompt.
