Akamai Linode now offers Kali Linux instances:
Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for penetration testing or -- yes -- hacking. This Debian-based Linux is a security worker's favorite distribution. And, now Linode, which recently became part of Akamai, is offering Kali as a supported distribution.
With Kali on Akamai, you can test and secure your production systems.
[...] For example, while you can add open-source penetration testing tools to any Linux distro, you must then also set up and configure these tools by hand. Kali comes with these tools already optimized and ready to run.
Linode is working with Kali on further documentation on how to best use their combination of cloud and Linux.
I really hope somebody has thought this through properly.
Previously:
Akamai to Acquire Linode
Call Us Immediately if Your Child Uses Kali Linux, Squawks West Mids Police
Related Stories
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/14/silly_police_infosec_parental_advice_poster/
The UK's National Crime Agency has publicly distanced itself from a poster urging parents to call police if their child has installed Kali Linux, Tor or – brace yourself – Discord.
Issued by the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit (WMROCU) via local area councils, the poster in question lists a slack handful of common infosec tools – as well as some that clearly have nothing to do with computer security.
Should your child install Kali Linux, virtual machines (the image on the poster looks like Virtualbox) or internet privacy tool Tor, West Midlands Police wants to know immediately. And if – Heaven forfend – your sprog installs Metasploit to learn how to secure code, uses free chat service for gamers Discord, or gets a Wi-Fi Pineapple for research, you may as well report straight to your nearest prison and abandon your tainted offspring forever.
Here is a link to the poster in question.
Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world's most trusted solution to power and protect digital experiences, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Linode, one of the easiest-to-use and most trusted infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform providers.
Modern digital experiences, including virtual environments like the metaverse, are created through the convergence of media, entertainment, technology, ecommerce, financial services, and online games. Akamai has been a key partner to the world’s leaders in these industries for decades by powering and protecting applications in today’s multi-cloud, multi-platform world. Together with Linode, which has made it simple, affordable and accessible for developers to consume cloud computing, Akamai will become the world’s most distributed compute platform, from cloud to edge.
“The opportunity to combine Linode’s developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading edge platform and security services is transformational for Akamai,” said Dr. Tom Leighton, chief executive officer and co-founder, Akamai Technologies. “Akamai has been a pioneer in the edge computing business for over 20 years, and today we are excited to begin a new chapter in our evolution by creating a unique cloud platform to build, run and secure applications from the cloud to the edge. This a big win for developers who will now be able to build the next generation of applications on a platform that delivers unprecedented scale, reach, performance, reliability and security.”
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @02:01PM (2 children)
This is because DigitalOcean seem to host lots of portscanners. People complain about China but I saw far more DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean might even have more scanners than Russian IPs.
May have to add Akamai to the list soon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @09:09PM
i heard there is a good hosts offering for that, not sure where, might have to look it up ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @10:20PM
DigitalOcean and Linode are on the upper-middle of the pack here. Right now, we are getting pretty heavy traffic from Baidu, HE, OVH, Unicom, Hetzner, AWS, GCP, CN, and a couple others you've probably not heard of. Plus portscanners are one thing, and lower tier hosts are full of those run by skiddies blasting away but it is the real attacks you have to worry about. Those more sophisticated attacks tend to come from China, bigger companies, zombies, or lax hosts because they rely on it in a way that DO and Linode can't do.
That said, we also drop traffic from a number companies, including a number of the above because it is defense in depth and enumerating the good is easier than trying to enumerate the bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @02:57PM (2 children)
installing another distro is easy, once you are root
whether they offer it by default is irrelevant
by the way, why bother getting a VPS when your payment gives your ID away? why not simply break into a wifi network using kali on a laptop?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 12 2022, @06:01PM (1 child)
I guess the important thing that Akamai linode will provide is their documentation telling people how to use Kali.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @07:48PM
Ignore that agent behind the curtain!
Kali has systemd, can it still be trusted?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 12 2022, @03:55PM (6 children)
Please forgive my naivety, but what might be the potential concerns?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Common Joe on Tuesday July 12 2022, @04:14PM (5 children)
The operating system is designed for hacking. It's usually used by the good guys.
By making it scalable (i.e., running lots of instances that work in tandem with one another), it makes Kali more attractive for the bad guys. A scalable operating system designed for hacking does concern me and the submitter.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 12 2022, @04:49PM (3 children)
Thanks. So, like most, I often leave out what, to me, seems obvious: don't you expect that the bad guys know all of this? They're usually extremely and evilly clever.
Also I would hope that if they're doing something evil on a hosting provider, they'd be discoverable, as opposed to running their own machine and passing through a VPN or some other anonymizing mechanism?
Or maybe that's the point- sort of a honeypot for amateur evil?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @10:35PM (2 children)
I think the concern isn't so much the big organizations but enabling script kiddies. By making it easier to install a hacking distro instead of installing the packages yourself, Linode is enabling them. I think what is being overlooked is exactly what you pointed out. That Linode knows everything you do when use their infrastructure. So if they see a machine use only their Linode image or a large number of them, they know that they should keep an extra eye on it. While it does make it easier to do bad actions it also makes it easier to catch them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Common Joe on Wednesday July 13 2022, @03:06AM (1 child)
Exactly this.
I'll add this thought, though: If places like Linode run many servers for the general populace, then why are so many servers being infected and taken over and utilized for working on things that the original user didn't want?
I'll admit that I haven't kept up with the server world in this capacity, but a few years ago they were being taken over as bot farms for mining. The big boys didn't seem to care because it ran up the bill and then the owners of the server had to pay. I think this came from the big boys not caring what was run on the server so long as it brought in money. I also think fleets of bots used for denial of service attacks weren't carried out by servers like this. Even today, I think they prefer to use devices from the "Internet of Things" world.
As for what Linode is doing today: It will be easier to keep an extra eye on denial of service attacks whole servers are taken over. They can hopefully monitor the network traffic (instead of monitoring the server directly) and hopefully be able to see "bad network hacking" from "good network hacking". (That's a lot of hope.)
But the biggest question isn't "Can they and will they today?" The biggest question is "Will they tomorrow?" Will the people in charge always watch for this or will some bean counter look at the monitoring set up and decide to quietly defund that part of the organization?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 13 2022, @09:14PM
The time where they won't watch their egress is far off for a place like Linode and Akamai. It is true that they make their money off of activity, but egress affects them differently than local activity. The second you start sending out traffic to another AS, they start counting that traffic against your reputation and your peering. If either get too far out of where they should be, then some serious repercussions can result, including depeering/settlement or high-priority drop rules. The stronger methods can affect all your customers and that directly affects your bottom line. Linode and Akamai have too much at risk as mid and high-level hosts to risk those kinds of outcomes and even the short-sighted middle managers can understand that, especially after the first spam or IP listing at the block level.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 12 2022, @09:25PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @07:40PM (1 child)
"the world's most trusted solution to power and protect digital experiences"
*cough* CIA/NSA
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12 2022, @09:23PM