Backtrack4

The Remote Exploit Development Team has just announced BackTrack 4 Beta. BackTrack is a Linux based LiveCD intended for security testing and we’ve been watching the project since the very early days. They say this new beta is both stable and usable. They’ve moved towards behaving like an actual distribution: it’s based on Debian core, they use Ubuntu software, and they’re running their own BackTrack repositories for future updates. There are a lot of new features, but the one we’re most interested in is the built in Pico card support. You can use the FPGAs to generate rainbow tables and do lookups for things like WPA, GSM, and Bluetooth cracking. BackTrack ISO and VMWare images are available here.

Website: http://www.remote-exploit.org

Samurai: Web Testing Framework

"The Samurai Web Testing Framework is a live linux environment that has been pre-configured to function as a web pen-testing environment. The CD contains the best of the open source and free tools that focus on testing and attacking websites. In developing this environment, we have based our tool selection on the tools we use in our security practice. We have included the tools used in all four steps of a web pen-test." read more...

Website: http://samurai.inguardians.com

OSWA™

"The OSWA™-Assistant is a self-contained, no Operating System required, freely downloadable, standalone toolkit which is solely focused on wireless auditing. As a result, in addition to the usual WiFi (802.11) auditing tools, it also covers Bluetooth and RFID auditing. Using the toolkit is as easy as popping it into your computer's CDROM and making your computer boot from it!" read more...

Website: http://oswa-assistant.securitystartshere.org

Ophcrack

" Ophcrack is an open source (GPL license) program that cracks Windows LM hashes using rainbow tables. The program includes the ability to import the hashes from a variety of formats, including dumping directly from the SAM files of Windows. There is also a Live CD version which automates the retrieval, decryption, and cracking of passwords from a Windows system. Rainbow tables for LM hashes of alphanumeric passwords are provided for free by the developers. These tables can crack 99.9% of alphanumeric passwords of up to 14 characters in usually a few seconds, and at most a few minutes. Larger rainbow tables (for LM hashes of passwords with all printable characters, including symbols and space) are available for purchase from Objectif Securité. Starting with version 2.3, Ophcrack also cracks NT hashes. This is necessary if generation of the LM hash is disabled (this is default on Windows Vista), or if the password is longer than 14 characters (in which case the LM hash is not stored)." read more...

Website: http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net

Honeywall CDROM

"The Honeywall CDROM is a bootable CD that copies all the functionality of a Honeywall onto a hard drive. It comes with all the tools and functionality for you to implement data capture, data control, and data analysis. It creates an architecture that allows you to deploy both low-interaction and high-interaction honeypots within it. The purpose of the Honeywall CDROM is to make it easier to deploy, manage, and derive value from honeynet technologies. The CDROM supports several configuration methods, including an interactive menu and .iso customization scripts. The CDROM is an appliance, based on a minimized and secured Linux OS." read more...

Website: https://projects.honeynet.org/honeywall

BackTrack: Penetration Testing Live CD

"BackTrack is the most Top rated Linux live distribution focused on penetration testing. With no installation whatsoever, the analysis platform is started directly from the CD-Rom and is fully accessible within minutes. It’s evolved from the merge of the two wide spread distributions Whax and Auditor Security Collection. BackTrack has a long history and was based on many different linux distribution until it is now based on a Slackware linux distribution and the corresponding live-CD scripts. Every packet, kernel configuration and scripts are optimized to be used by security penetration testers. Patches and automatism have been added, applied or developed to provide a neat and ready-to-go environment." read more...

Website: http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html

NST: Network Security Toolkit

"NST is a bootable ISO live CD is based on Fedora. The toolkit was designed to provide easy access to best-of-breed Open Source Network Security Applications and should run on most x86 platforms. The 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 100 Security Tools by insecure.org are available in the toolkit." read more...

Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nst

STD: Security Tools Distribution

"STD is a Linux-based Security Tool. Actually, it is a collection of hundreds if not thousands of open source security tools. It's a Live Linux Distro, which means it runs from a bootable CD in memory without changing the native operating system of the host computer. Its sole purpose in life is to put as many security tools at your disposal with as slick an interface as it can." read more...

Website: http://www.knoppix-std.org

Helix - Incident Response & Computer Forensics Live CD

"Helix is a customized distribution of the Knoppix Live Linux CD. Helix is more than just a bootable live CD. You can still boot into a customized Linux environment that includes customized linux kernels, excellent hardware detection and many applications dedicated to Incident Response and Forensics.

Helix has been modified very carefully to NOT touch the host computer in any way and it is forensically sound. Helix wil not auto mount swap space, or auto mount any attached devices. Helix also has a special Windows autorun side for Incident Response and Forensics." read more...

Download: http://www.e-fense.com/helix/downloads.php