Specialized OS distributions for Pentest

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Several operating system distributions are geared towards penetration testing.[21] Such distributions typically contain a pre-packaged and pre-configured set of tools. The penetration tester does not have to hunt down each individual tool, which might increase the risk of complications—such as compile errors, dependency issues, and configuration errors. Also, acquiring additional tools may not be practical in the tester's context.

Notable penetration testing OS examples include:

    BlackArch based on Arch Linux
    BackBox based on Ubuntu
    Kali Linux (replaced BackTrack December 2012) based on Debian
    Parrot Security OS based on Debian
    Pentoo based on Gentoo
    WHAX based on Slackware

Many other specialized operating systems facilitate penetration testing—each more or less dedicated to a specific field of penetration testing.

A number of Linux distributions include known OS and application vulnerabilities, and can be deployed as targets to practice against. Such systems help new security professionals try the latest security tools in a lab environment. Examples include Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL), the OWASP Web Testing Environment (WTW), and Metasploitable.