Raspberry Pi [low-cost, small-sized, high-performance]

Introduction: What’s Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi® is a tiny, single-board, low-cost, high-performance computer first developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It was introduced as a learning tool with the goal to get kids into programming/coding with cheap and small, but very powerful mini computer.

This small computer rapidly became very popular among electronic lovers, programmers, security professionals, tech people and hackers around the world. You can use it as a budget desktop ($35), to build robots, smart mirrors and houses, to test your systems for vulnerabilites, to learn ethical hacking, programming, including penetration testing.  … the list of things you can do with it is almost infinite.

Released models:

Raspberry Pi Features:

• It’s cheap, small, powerful credit-card sized computer, with which you can do almost everything you’ve imagine.
• RPi has all the features that has a laptop / desktop, but it’s very affordable compared to them. Of course, you need to be patient because you’ll encounter some lags (e.g. during loading heavier websites.)
• It provides an excellent environment for experimenting with programming, hacking and electronics.
• Raspberry Pi consumes very less power and system is noise free, which is awesome.
• It’s even perfect for kids to develop programming skills, and to gain some basic electronics knowledge.
• It provides a simple and easy way to control electrical components, for example sensors in smart houses, robotics, etc.
• RPi is able to display images or play videos at 1080p HD resolution. It’s also armed with built-in HDMI capable graphics.
• It has highly available documentation, with all the instructions, examples, tutorials that can help you learn and develop on it.
• Since it has SD Card storage, it allows you to swap them anytime you want/need. (e.g. SD cards with different OS).
• RPi can be overclocked, and much more.

Supported OSs

It is recommended to use Raspian OS (provided by Raspberry Pi Foundation), a Debian-based Linux distribution, but you can choose any other available linux distro, such as:

• Ubuntu, Arch Linux ARM, Kali Linux, Fedora, CentOS, Gentoo Linux, Slackware ARM, etc. (full list of supported linux distros)

There are also non-linux operating systems supported:

• RISC OS Pi, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Windows 10 IoT Core, Haiku, etc.

Raspberry Pi Specs [comparative view: starting from the latest model]

Necessary Accessories

Pi doesn’t come with a case, any cables, power source, onboard storage also… in other words everything you’ll plan to connect on Pi, isn’t included. Given that it’s very affordable, it has some logic.

Essential list:

• A microSD card (4GB at least, we recommend 8GB): with NOOBS or without. You can install it manually. Just note that not the all microSD cards are same.
• Power supply: Depending on board model. E.g. 2.5A micro USB power supply will do the job (you’ll find in specs for specific model).
• Monitor/TV, mouse and keyboard.
• Connectivity cable: HDMI cable to connect to monitor/tv.
• Ethernet cable (Model B/B+ only)/Wireless adapter
• Pi case to protect your friend.
• and GOOD WILL!

Enough bla bla.. let’s see how can we use Pi for hacking and pentesting.

Hacking and Pentesting with Pi

Small size and ability to do some powerful things brought Pi great fame and popularity among hackers, pentesters and cybersecurity professionals. But why to use Pi for hacking?

The first amazing thing is low-cost price. It’s super cheap, so you can use it for remote penetration testing and to save some money and time on traveling to multiple locations and similar. You can control the Pi and execute commands remotely as long as the network to Pi is connected to is up.

The second thing is that it’s highly discreet. You can put it or hide it wherever you like, mostly at target’s location such as book, printer, wall clock, teddy bear, empty adapter, pc case, etc. Once you hacked into target network, you’ll gain remote access and you can do some crazy, evil but also funny things.

The low footprint and power consumption of the Raspberry Pi means that it is possible to run the device for a day/two on external battery pack USBs.

Raspberry Pi + Kali Linux is a winning combination, if you are asking hackers or pentesters. Kali has many penetration-testing tools and programs, including nmap (a port scanner), Wireshark (a packet analyzer), John the Ripper (a password cracker), Aircrack-ng (penetration-testing of wireless LANs), and Burp suite and OWASP ZAP, Metasploit Framework, social and reverse engineering tools, and so on … If you decide to use Kali, your Pi will become hacking arsenal. When you combine those two together, you will get a super-portable network testing machine that you can bring with you anywhere.

Raspberry Pi usage

Once you develop a command and control system to manage a remotely-placed Raspberry Pi you can perform pentesting and hacking tasks. You can also:

• Scan network for vulnerabilities, perform password cracking, bypassing SSL encryption, compromising systems, etc.
• Perform MiTM (man-in-the-middle-attack) and bypass advanced encryption techniques.
• Bypass security defenses and remove data off a target network.
• Perform Wireless Attacks: Pi is the ideal weapon for Wi-Fi reconnaissance and attack.
• Connect Pineapple designed for Pi and intercept login information, passwords, all kind of credentials.
• Use the USB Rubber Ducky to automate Wi-Fi handshake harvesting on the Raspberry Pi without using a screen.
• and so much more.

Conclusion

Remote pentesting and hacking is awesome, and Pi is just perfect little machine for that use at many levels which you can get for the ridiculous price, as we already mentioned above. When you place Pi and Kali together, you’ll have easily portable pentesting and hacking buddy. Pi is very popular and widely used, so you’ll find a lot of docu and tutorials all over the Internet which can help you If you get stuck, or to get started If you are a very beginner.