Parrot OS is a live and installable operating system based on Debian Linux and targeted at penetration testers and people interested in online anonymity. The nearly 2GB DVD download integrates professional and beginner computer security tools inside the MATE Desktop environment, a GNOME2 fork
Booting can be done in forensic mode, listed as Stealth, to avoid modifying any file in the host computer, live, live fail safe or with a graphical GUI to install the operating system in your computer, visually impaired people can use a speech synthesis installer.
Parrot OS default username is root with password toor easily changed after logging in. The distribution homepage has a Wiki but at the moment it only contains basic information for newbies about how to boot from BIOS or burn the distribution to a USB thumbdrive. However, if you are familiar with Linux you should not have to read too many tutorials, the tools included in Parrot OS are the same ones found in similar pen testing distributions like Kali or BackTrack Linux.
Linux penetration testing Parrot OS
Some useful tools for privacy activists found in Parrot OS are Truecrypt to encrypt data, Bleachbit to erase Internet tracks, although if you run the live DVD this will not be needed, and the Iceweasel browser running with Tor, with Vidalia providing a graphical interface to manage the Tor network, showing consumed bandwidth, nodes you are connected to and message logs.
Tools for penetration testers include packet sniffer Wireshark, man in the middle attacks with the Ettercap suite and an md5crack to brute for passwords out of captured md5 hashes. A screenshot and desktop recording utility is able to document all you do.
Practically all of the hacking tools are found under the Parrot menu, dozens of programs nicely classified under descriptive activities such as “Information Gathering” ; “Sniffing/Spoofing“; “Wireless Attacks“; “Reverse Engineering” and many others with a submenu are all easily accessible.
Although this distribution is being advertised as anonymity and penetration testing in one, I believe that it is mostly suitable for pen testers, those who want anonymity are still better off with Tails. Parrot OS is similar to Attack Vector Linux, packing powerful penetration testing tools with Tor to hide who is using them. On the other hand, any sys admin worth his salt will be blocking all Tor proxies from accessing the network.
Computer forensics can also benefit from Parrot OS, as it has a dedicated “Forensics” menu with carving, hashing and imaging tools together with reporting tools to manage evidence and a forensic boot that will not modify data. You can find this distribution to be a sound alternative to BackTrack.
EclipseSpark
new version released, full of new features as anon surf (that turns all the system comunications under TOR), kernel 3.12 and so on
hacker10
Thank you for the update. It sounds like something that those interested in online privacy should try.
hacker10
EclipseSpark
For what concerns the absence of “pro” guidelines we are working on it, we are an Italian team, so we make tutorials and videoguides in Italian for our blog (blog.frozenbox.org) or our youtube channel, but we are working on our tutorial and documentation pages in order to provide a short description and an usage walk through for the most used tools, but all this is still in development, by now we are focusing on other things
We started from just mixing debian with mate and kali tools, but now the project is acquiring a strong development line and we are focusing on pentesting, privacy and automatization of any complex stuff, but of course the goal of this new release is the “Anon Surf” modality, probably in the next release we’ll officialize our “pentesting in the cloud” solution
We’ve added this blog to our sponsors list (http://www.parrotsec.org/index.php/Sponsors), do you want to officially support us??
hacker10
Hello EclipseSpark,
Unfortunately I am not in a position to support anybody, I hardly have the time to update this blog at all. I can only wish you the best of luck with Parrot OS.
hacker10
EclipseSpark
new version released, the features are the same, but now the system has a new graphic theme and some bugs were fixed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQToKYH6NX8
Zero
I have been using Parrot for two years now , it is absolutely the best , I test many distributions as they are released searching for the best . With Parrot it was a absolute winner , congrats on all the hard work you put into it Parrot team .. Since i started using it two years ago i have noticed that more and more people are dropping Kali to move to Parrot… thanks again for this awesome distro
anonshadow
just want to say i switched from kali to parrot and ilove it keep up the good work guys
Sid
Trying to get my Nvidia 730 to do dual screen in parrot Linux any ideas on how to do so?
Ravindra
Greetings Parrot Linux
New version full new features happppy to see you, great job.
fahad
hello SIr
i am looking for some books on Parrot OS can you pls recommend me i find so many books on kali but not on parrot os thats why
Thanks in advance.