In the field of penetration testing, BackTrack is today's premier Linux distribution. Designed for, created by, and used by security professionals around the globe, BackTrack is the result of a merger between two earlier, competing distributions -- WHAX and Auditor Security Collection. The most recent beta version was released on June 10.

Version 3.0 of BackTrack has been released. BackTrack is a Linux-based distribution dedicated to penetration testing or hacking (depending on how you look at it). It contains more than 300 of the world's most popular open source or freely distributable hacking tools.

We have already had three articles on Linux forensics. This is the fourth. Today, we will review another high-end, security-oriented distribution, BackTrack.

In a previous article Linux-Tip explained how to install the current release (Backtrack 3 Final) in a virtual environment using VMWare. The goal was to run Backtrack 3 from the hard disk connected to a Wireless USB Adapter and to use the tool Kismet. It further explains how to collect valid wireless networks and to display them on Google Earth’s worldwide map system.

In this article we will describe how we can create a bootable Backtrack 4 USB Drive that will save all the changes we make on the USB itself. In this scenario we will use 2 USB Drives. One USB drive of 1GB and the 2GB USB drive which will hold our changes.

You already know that if you want to lock down your Wi-Fi network, you should opt for WPA encryption because WEP is easy to crack. But did you know how easy? Take a look.

Offensive Security, leaders in Online information security training, proudly announced last evening the final release of their extremely popular security oriented operating system, BackTrack 4.

Nessus is a proprietary comprehensive vulnerability scanning tool. It is free of charge for personal use in a non-enterprise environment. Its goal is to detect potential vulnerabilities on the tested systems. Tanable Network Security announced the release of Nessus 4.2.0 last month. Nessus is now using a web based interface to manage scans and their results.

Libelium is shipping two Linux-based WiFi and Bluetooth routers that deliver proximity marketing services. The outdoor-mountable "N-Vio" and indoors-only "N-Vio Lite" devices offer public WiFi access, as well as Bluetooth or WiFi-based interactive marketing services, says the Zaragoza Spain-based company.