Widely considered the gold standard of port scanners, Nmap is one of several scanners available within BackTrack. (Read more about patches in Patch the Future: New Challenges in Software Patching.) Consequently, security auditors that choose to use Metasploit often do nothing more than simply ensure that a given node is updated and patched properly. After said patch is released, Metasploit Framework developers create exploits to take advantage of previously patched Microsoft bugs. For example, Microsoft routinely releases updates and/or security patches after certain vulnerabilities have been discovered by Microsoft or a third party. Perhaps the most common use of Metasploit involves its ability to assess whether a given node has been updated and patched correctly. Currently, Metasploit has made considerable gains in popularity, and it has proceeded to make significant advances in the areas of Wi-Fi and protocol exploitation. The Metasploit Framework was developed in 2003 as a means to take advantage of known software bugs when assessing a given network. Some of the more popular security tools currently offered by BackTrack 5 are Metasploit, Network Mapper (Nmap) and John the Ripper. Not only can security administrators save incalculable amounts of time by having so many tools at their fingertips, but they also may take comfort in the fact that BackTrack’s access to Ubuntu’s repositories allows for easy updates and easy downloading of additional tools. But what sets BackTrack apart from many of its Linux brethren is the compilation of out of the box security tools, coupled with its Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) partnership. The latest and the greatest BackTrack has a few more bells and whistles. It also features both a KDE and a GNOME desktop that the end user may select prior to downloading the ISO image. BackTrack 5 is based on Ubuntu, and allows for easier updates due to its access to Ubuntu’s software repositories. It has become wildly popular within the security industry. At the time of this writing, the most current release is Backtrack 5 Release 1, which was released in August 2011. Over the years, BackTrack released approximately one new distribution every year. It featured a KDE desktop that ran on top of the 2.6.15.6 Linux kernel, but its primary claim to fame revolved around the highly detailed compilation of out of the box penetration tools. On February 5, 2006, BackTrack 1.0 was released and billed as a merger between two competing Linux distributions known as WHAX and Auditor Security Linux.
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