LiveCD News

HowtoForge resets the root password of a Linux system with Knoppix.

Linux.com reviews BackTrack 2.

BackTrack is a live CD Linux distribution that focuses on penetration testing. A merger of two older security-related distros — Whax and Auditor Security Collection — BackTrack bundles more than 300 security tools.

The Star Online has some instructions for using Darik’s Boot and Nuke to erase hard drives.

Linux.com reviews an interesting new LiveCD designed for learning software security.

“The main idea behind DVL,” says Schneider, “was to build up a training system that I could use for my university lectures.” His goal was to design a Linux system that was as vulnerable as possible, to teach topics such as reverse code engineering, buffer overflows, shellcode development, Web exploitation, and SQL injection.

Lifehacker uses screenshots to show how to crack Windows passwords with a LiveCD.

gnuman.com has a review of the security LiveCD INSERT.

A new version of nUbuntu, a distro focused on network security and available in LiveCD form, has been released.

The BackTrack security LiveCD has released a download link for the beta of version 2.0.

LinuxPlanet has a review of Sectoo, a Gentoo based security LiveCD.

Rousseau wanted to make Sectoo Linux a lightweight system, in terms of minimal requirements. He said that 64MB or even 32MB of RAM should be enough to run Sectoo.

ComputerWeekly.com mentions BackTrack as a quick way to run Kismet in their article on wireless security tools.

Computerworld Blogs gives some quick advice for destroying the data on old hard drives.

DistroWatch Weekly reviews all the popular BSD LiveCDs available for download.

GNU/Linux live CDs are increasingly playing an important role in the free software community. They serve as advocacy tools, they make it possible for newbies to try out software without having to install anything and they make fantastic rescue disks. While all the best known live CDs are GNU/Linux variants, there are also several *BSD live CDs out there. I decided to give them a test run.

The long awaited final release of BackTrack, the combination of WHAX (Whoppix) and Auditor, is out and available for download.

OSDir.com has screenshots of the new Frenzy 1.0 Beta 1 BSD LiveCD.

Securitydistro.com has an interview with the creator of Arudius. Arudius is a smaller LiveCD based on MiniSlack.

Darknet.org summarizes ten different security based LiveCDs and rates them. A good article for figuring out which security LiveCD to add to your toolbox.

Caffeinated Security has a review of Penetration Tester’s Open Source Toolkit, a book which includes the Auditor LiveCD.

DistroWatch.com has one of the first reviews of BackTrack, the results of WHAX (Whoppix) and Auditor security LiveCDs joining together.

Once on the desktop, you will immediately notice the “BackTrack” submenu on the KDE panel. This is the most exciting part of this distribution, a place were all the specialist utilities can be accessed from. It is pointless to list them all here, but let me assure you that the collection is truly astonishing and includes tools for sniffing remote router traffic, cracking Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), “bluesnarfing” (a method of hacking into Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones), scanning networks for vulnerabilities, uncovering weaknesses in the Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP), decrypting SSL traffic and recovering passwords.

The security section of Enterprise IT Planet has an article about seven useful tools for computer security. Coming in at number seven is WHAX.

And finally, every security practitioner should have a live CD of some sort. I prefer WHAX, but there are many, many live CD distros available tailored to specific purposes.

NewsForge reports there’s a new security LiveCD based on Slackware.