Kali Linux 2025.4 has been officially released as the final update of the year, bringing new hacking tools, major desktop environment updates, expanded NetHunter support, and deeper adoption of Wayland. The release continues Kali Linux’s focus on professional cybersecurity use cases, including penetration testing, red teaming, and digital forensics.
Kali Linux is a specialized Linux distribution developed for security professionals and ethical hackers. It can be installed as a full operating system or run as a live environment and supports a wide range of hardware platforms, including Raspberry Pi devices and Android smartphones through Kali NetHunter.
The 2025.4 release introduces improvements across tooling, usability, and platform compatibility, reinforcing Kali’s role as a standard toolkit for security research.
New tools added in Kali Linux 2025.4
Each Kali Linux update typically adds new security tools, and Kali Linux 2025.4 includes three notable additions aimed at advanced workflows.
The first is bpf-linker, a simple static linker designed for BPF programs. This tool supports developers and researchers working with extended Berkeley Packet Filter technology, which is widely used for networking, tracing, and security monitoring.
The second tool, evil-winrm-py, is a Python-based utility for executing commands on remote Windows systems using the Windows Remote Management protocol. It is designed for penetration testers conducting post-exploitation activities in Windows environments.
The third addition, hexstrike-ai, is an MCP server that allows artificial intelligence agents to autonomously execute tools. This reflects the growing intersection between AI and cybersecurity automation.
Together, these tools expand Kali’s capabilities across system-level analysis, Windows exploitation, and AI-assisted security research.
Desktop environment and platform improvements
Kali Linux 2025.4 delivers significant updates to its desktop environments, including GNOME, KDE Plasma, and Xfce.
GNOME has been updated to version 49 and now runs entirely on Wayland, with X11 support fully removed. The update introduces refreshed themes, a new Showtime video player, reorganized application folders, and new keyboard shortcuts. Users can now open a terminal quickly using Ctrl plus Alt plus T or Win plus T, a quality-of-life improvement long requested by the community.
KDE Plasma has been upgraded to version 6.5, bringing improved window tiling, a more capable screenshot tool, enhanced clipboard handling, and more flexible fuzzy search through KRunner.
Xfce also received updates, including support for color themes that allow users to customize icons and interface colors more easily, bringing feature parity closer to GNOME and KDE.
With GNOME now fully on Wayland, the Kali team added complete virtual machine guest utilities support for VirtualBox, VMware, and QEMU, improving performance and usability for virtualized environments.
NetHunter updates and other changes
Kali NetHunter received several updates in this release. Device support has expanded to include Android 16 on the Samsung Galaxy S10 and OnePlus Nord, as well as Android 15 on the Xiaomi Mi 9.
The NetHunter Terminal has been restored with improved compatibility for Magisk versions that use interactive mode, preventing terminal sessions from closing when users press CTRL plus C.
A preview of Wifipumpkin3 is now available in the NetHunter app. This framework supports rogue access point attacks and includes phishing templates for platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, iCloud, and Snapchat.
Other notable changes include the decision to distribute Kali Live images exclusively via BitTorrent due to their growing size. The project also added three new community mirrors in Asia and one in the United States to improve download availability. Kali Cloud and the Kali WSL app received reliability and infrastructure improvements behind the scenes.
Users can upgrade to Kali Linux 2025.4 using standard package management commands, while new installations are available via updated ISO images. For Windows users, upgrading to WSL2 is recommended for better graphical application support.
With these updates, Kali Linux 2025.4 strengthens its position as a comprehensive and modern platform for cybersecurity professionals.
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