The ParrotOS team has launched version 7.0 of its Debian-based ethical hacking and penetration testing distribution, codenamed Echo. Built on Debian 13 Trixie and Linux kernel 6.12 LTS, it features KDE Plasma as the default desktop environment on Wayland. New tools and RISC-V support highlight the update's focus on security professionals.
Parrot 7.0 arrives as a significant upgrade for users in ethical hacking and penetration testing. The distribution shifts to Debian 13 “Trixie” as its base, incorporating Linux kernel 6.12 LTS for enhanced stability. Developers have selected KDE Plasma on Wayland as the default desktop, optimized for lightness with a green terminal theme throughout the system.
This release introduces several new security tools to bolster its toolkit. Among them are ConvoC2 for exploiting Microsoft Teams in red teaming scenarios, goshs as a Go-based SimpleHTTPServer, evil-winrm-py for running commands on remote Windows systems via Python, and AutoRecon for multi-threaded network reconnaissance. Additional additions include bpf-linker for BPF static linking, PKINITtools for Kerberos PKINIT and Active Directory Certificate Services relaying, Chisel for firewall traversal in Go, BloodHound.py as a Python ingestor for BloodHound, and TruffleHound for scanning secrets.
Responding to community feedback, Parrot 7.0 adds an “AI Tools” category in the Security edition, featuring HexStrike AI for AI-driven penetration testing and assessments. Other improvements encompass an expanded parrot-tools metapackage for pre-installing more utilities, a rootfs tarball for RISC-V architecture, a Parrot Updater rewritten in Rust with a graphical interface, refreshed Docker and WSL images, and a script to transform Debian setups into Parrot.
Downloads are available for 64-bit Home and Security live editions, alongside Docker images, virtual machine formats, Raspberry Pi support, and a RISC-V version from the official site. Users on Parrot 6 can upgrade while retaining the MATE desktop, though a fresh installation is advised for optimal performance, particularly from older releases.
