BackTrack

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.

BackTrack has evolved from the merge of the two wide spread distributions - Whax and Auditor Security Collection. By joining forces and replacing these distributions, BackTrack has gained massive popularity and was voted in 2006 as the #1 Security Live Distribution by insecure.org. Security professionals as well as new comers are using BackTrack as their favorite toolset all over the globe.

BackTrack takes advantage of SLAX's modular design and structure to enable the user to include customizable scripts, additional tools and configurable kernels in personalized distributions. The BackTrack project was created by Mati Aharoni and Max Moser and is a collaborative effort involving the community.

BackTrack focuses its central idea on the needs of computer penetration testers. The inclusion of LiveCD and LiveUSB functionality enables any user to just insert their respective data medium and boot up BackTrack. Direct hard disk installations (2.7 GB uncompressed) can also be completed within the LiveCD environment through the basic graphical installation wizard with no restart subsequent to installation. BackTrack further continues its compatibility with the computer forensics demographic with accessibility and internationalization by including support for Japanese input in reading and writing in Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.

No other commercial or freely available analysis platform offers an equivalent level of usability with automatic configuration and focus on penetration testing as BackTrack.