10 Best Security Live CD Distros (Pen-Test, Forensics & Recovery)

The guys of darknet.org.uk have posted a new article that lists the 10 best security live CD distributions according to them. Each distribution is introduced in a small paragraph and features links to the distributions homepage.

Update: The page is still available, and while it may contain links to some outdated distributions, it offers some great suggestions up to this day. Here is the list of live CDs that you can use for forensics, recovery, and penetration testing. We have removed distributions from the list that are no longer maintained or even available on the Internet. This explains why only a few of the distributions is still listed here. If you look through the listing, you will notice that the remaining eight are either returning a 404 not found error or have not been updated for years.

BackTrack - Number one on the list, and still around. Pay note that the url has changed, and that the original article still links to the old page that is no longer available.

BackTrack is a Linux-based penetration testing arsenal that aids security professionals in the ability to perform assessments in a purely native environment dedicated to hacking

Here are alternatives that you can take a closer look at.

Network Security Toolkit

he main intent of developing this toolkit was to provide the network security administrator with a comprehensive set of Open Source Network Security Tools. The majority of tools published in the article: Top 125 Security Tools by INSECURE.ORG are available in the toolkit

Deft Linux

DEFT 7 is based on the new Kernel 3 (Linux side) and the DART (Digital Advanced Response Toolkit) with the best freeware Windows Computer Forensic tools. It’s a new concept of Computer Forensic system that use LXDE as desktop environment and WINE for execute Windows tools under Linux and mount manager as tool for device management.

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