• Non-Root by default
• Kali single installer image
• Kali NetHunter Rootless
• Improvements to theme & kali-undercover
• New tools

Non-Root

Throughout the history of Kali (and its predecessors BackTrack, WHAX, and Whoppix), the default credentials have been root/toor. This is no more. We are no longer using the superuser account, root, as default in Kali 2020.1. The default user account is now a standard, unprivileged, user.

root/toor is dead. Long live kali/kali.

NetHunter Images

The mobile pen-testing platform, Kali NetHunter, has also had some new improvements. You are now no longer required to root your phone in order to run Kali NetHunter, but that does come with some limitations.
To suit everybody’s needs, Kali NetHunter now comes in the following three editions:

• NetHunter – Needs rooted devices with custom recovery and patched kernel. Has no restrictions. Device specific images are available here.
• NetHunter Light – Needs rooted devices with custom recovery but no custom kernel. Has minor restrictions, i.e. no WiFi injection or HID support. Architecture specific images are available here.
• NetHunter Rootless – Installable on all stock standard, unmodified devices using Termux. Some limitations, like lack of db support in Metasploit and no root permissions. Installation instruction is available here.

The NetHunter documentation page includes a more detailed comparison.


Upgrade to Kali Linux 2020.1

Existing Upgrades If you already have an existing Kali installation, remember you can always do a quick update:

kali@kali:~$ cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main non-free contrib
EOF
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f
kali@kali:~$

You should now be on Kali Linux 2020.1. We can do a quick check by doing:

kali@kali:~$ grep VERSION /etc/os-release
VERSION="2020.1"
VERSION_ID="2020.1"
VERSION_CODENAME="kali-rolling"
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ uname -v
#1 SMP Debian 5.4.13-1kali1 (2020-01-20)
kali@kali:~$
kali@kali:~$ uname -r
5.4.0-kali3-amd64
kali@kali:~$

More info here.