Kali Linux 2025.4, launched with substantial desktop setting enhancements, full Wayland help throughout digital machines, and three highly effective new hacking instruments, together with the much-anticipated Wifipumpkin3.
Launched on December 12, 2025, this replace focuses on modernizing the consumer expertise whereas sustaining Kali’s place because the premier penetration testing platform. The discharge brings GNOME 49, KDE Plasma 6.5, and refreshed Xfce theming, alongside kernel 6.16 and demanding infrastructure updates.
GNOME 49
GNOME 49 marks a major milestone by changing into utterly Wayland-only, eradicating X11 session help fully. The desktop setting has been completely refreshed with polished themes throughout all Kali variants.
Most notably, the getting older Totem video participant has been changed with Showtime, a contemporary GTK4-based software that gives a distraction-free viewing expertise with chromeless home windows and fading controls.
The applying grid now organizes Kali’s intensive toolkit into folders matching the menu construction, making software discovery considerably extra intuitive. Customers additionally acquire a long-awaited terminal shortcut (Ctrl+Alt+T or Win+T), bringing GNOME in keeping with different desktop environments.
KDE Plasma has jumped to model 6.5, incorporating two main releases’ value of enhancements. Key enhancements embrace extra versatile window tiling, a redesigned screenshot software with superior enhancing options, fast entry to pinned clipboard gadgets straight within the panel, and fuzzy matching help in KRunner that finds functions even when misspelled.
Xfce receives complete coloration theme help for the primary time, reaching function parity with GNOME and KDE. Customers can now absolutely customise colours by way of the Look software for icons, GTK 3/4 home windows, and Xfce’s window supervisor, with Qt packages configurable by way of qt5ct or qt6ct.
With GNOME’s transition to Wayland-only and KDE’s longstanding Wayland default since Kali Linux 2023.1, the event crew prioritized guaranteeing seamless digital machine help.
This launch brings full Wayland performance to VirtualBox, VMware, and QEMU environments, with clipboard sharing and window scaling working flawlessly.
The transfer addresses the ultimate barrier to Wayland adoption for penetration testers who rely closely on virtualized environments. All main VM software program now absolutely helps Wayland because the visitor working system, eliminating compatibility issues that beforehand saved some customers on X11.
Kali 2025.4 introduces three specialised instruments to the community repositories:
bpf-linker serves as a easy static linker for Berkeley Packet Filter packages, important for eBPF-based safety tooling.
evil-winrm-py offers a Python-based implementation for executing instructions on distant Home windows machines by way of the Home windows Distant Administration protocol. The software helps a number of authentication strategies, together with NTLM, Go-the-Hash, certificate-based authentication, and Kerberos, with options like file add/obtain, command historical past, and colorized output.
hexstrike-ai features as an MCP server enabling AI brokers to autonomously run safety instruments, representing a major step towards AI-assisted penetration testing workflows.
The kernel has been upgraded to model 6.16, bringing efficiency enhancements, USB audio offload help, XFS giant atomic writes, and optimized compilation choices for native CPU architectures.
Wifipumpkin3 Integration Enhances Wi-fi Testing
Whereas not among the many three “new” instruments, Wifipumpkin3 receives important consideration on this launch by way of enhanced NetHunter integration. The highly effective rogue entry level framework helps Evil Twin assaults, captive portal credential harvesting, DNS spoofing, site visitors interception, and customized phishing pages.
Wifipumpkin3
The NetHunter app now features a Wifipumpkin3 preview tab with up to date neighborhood templates, together with phishing pages for Fb, Instagram, iCloud, and Snapchat.
Inbuilt Python and utilizing GStreamer, Wifipumpkin3 allows complete wi-fi community auditing by way of man-in-the-middle assaults and clear proxies.
NetHunter Expands Android 16 Help
Kali NetHunter brings intensive cell updates, together with Android 16 help for the Samsung Galaxy S10 household (S10, S10e, S10 Plus, and S10 5G) operating LineageOS 23, full with CAN bus help and inside wi-fi injection capabilities. The OnePlus Nord additionally beneficial properties Android 16 compatibility, whereas the Xiaomi Mi 9 now helps Android 15.
The Terminal app has been restored to full performance after neighborhood efforts, now supporting all Magisk variations with interactive mode, stopping CTRL+C from closing terminal classes. Magisk installer now helps module set up, with put in kernel modules showing within the Modules tab.
The Stay picture now exceeds the 5GB Cloudflare CDN restrict and is now obtainable solely as a BitTorrent obtain, becoming a member of the All the things picture. At 4.7GB, the Stay picture accommodates a completely practical pre-installed Kali system compressed with xz, plus the installer and minimal package deal pool.
A hidden seasonal function, Halloween mode, stays accessible by way of the command kali-undercover –halloween, dressing the desktop with themed aesthetics. The usual Kali Undercover mode continues to supply Home windows 10-like theming for working in public areas discreetly.
Contemporary photos can be found by way of official obtain channels, with weekly builds offering absolutely the newest packages for individuals who can’t look forward to the subsequent quarterly launch.
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ echo “deb kali-rolling major contrib non-free non-free-firmware” | sudo tee /and many others/apt/sources.listing[…]┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ sudo apt replace && sudo apt -y full-upgrade[…]┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ cp -vrbi /and many others/skel/. ~/[…]┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -f
Current installations can improve by way of customary package deal administration instructions, bringing techniques to kernel 6.16.8-1kali1.
┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ grep VERSION /and many others/os-releaseVERSION=”2025.4″VERSION_ID=”2025.4″VERSION_CODENAME=”kali-rolling”┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ uname -v#1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Kali 6.16.8-1kali1 (2025-09-24)┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]└─$ uname -r6.16.8+kali-amd64
The Kali crew has expanded its mirror infrastructure with three new Asian mirrors in India and South Korea, plus one extra North American mirror, enhancing obtain speeds and world availability.
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