Anilyst Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 Hey everyone, Im new here and just got my first job in the IT industry and wondering what everyone recommends for the best possible laptop that is reasonable price for Pentesting, MITM and just general Linux / networking stuff Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxtrot Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 (edited) Thinkpads are good, neat laptops. Most run linux well, however you may like to avoid ones with Nvidia chips. Depending on what job in pentesting you're doing, youd probably swap out say the Wireless NIC for an Atheros :) Good Luck :) Edited October 10, 2013 by Foxtrot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest spazi Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 (edited) ... Edited October 10, 2013 by spazi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 Computer is irrelevant. Just need any pc or laptop and decent wifi card that can be used for certain tools, but most pentesting can be done from any machine, regardless of OS too, although Kali does make it easier to have an arsenal of tools all in one distro to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 New to forums so understandable, but try not to double post questions. https://forums.hak5.org/index.php?/topic/30480-computer-for-pentesting/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest spazi Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 (edited) Since he's double posting, I'll just post my reply here as well :P Just gonna throw in my opinion. I guess for pentesting in the field what you need is great battery life and ok specs.I'm not a certified pentester, It's just a hobby for me but I'm actually using a Asus eee 1015 series netbook. Bought it second hand for next to nothing.Specs are far from mind blowing, but I installed a SSD hard drive and it boots up pretty fast and battery life is 7-8 hours. I personally don't use laptops for cracking hashes. I use my desktop PC for that with GPU. If battery life isn't an issue for you, I've heard good stuff about laptops from System76 that are dedicated linux computers and come shipped with ubuntu. They are Based in the US and are pretty amazing spec wise. Once battery life get's better (3-4 hours so far), I'm probably gonna buy one. As digip said, computer itself is irrelevant. I'm using a shitty spec computer, and it works like a dream. A laptop with a dual core processor is more than enough to suit your needs. Didn't think much about the wifi card, Since I'm always using an external wifi adapter, such as the Alfa AWUS036H for wifi pentesting. Edited October 10, 2013 by spazi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr-Protocol Posted October 10, 2013 Share Posted October 10, 2013 Merged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dec100 Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 Clearly, the most important thing for a pentesting laptop is a Pineapple sticker... :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest spazi Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 Clearly, the most important thing for a pentesting laptop is a Pineapple sticker... :) +1 !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anilyst Posted October 11, 2013 Author Share Posted October 11, 2013 Thanks for the comments everyone but so if i had to get a laptop at this moment with a good battery, what would it be? Thanks for helping me out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triphazard Posted October 11, 2013 Share Posted October 11, 2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_netbooks columns 16 and 17 in the specifications table also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrabook#Specifications and http://blog.laptopmag.com/all-day-strong-longest-lasting-notebooks Wikipedia isn't always up to date. However, their information is organized better than most commercial sites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soroush Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 best hacking laptop is almost the same as the best gaming laptop more gpu for password cracking (gaming) faster wifi for mitm attack (multiplayer) and more I personally recommend msi gt70 dragon edition 2 extreme. you can check it out here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anilyst Posted October 16, 2013 Author Share Posted October 16, 2013 Anything for around 1000-1500 Canadian would be preferred Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZaraByte Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 I happen to like my Dell Mini 910 N series netbook its 10 inches easy for portability picked it up on ebay for under $160 had to replace the battery ended up getting a battery for it that lasts over 4 hours in the field on medium load. Myself i prefer a computer thats small as i can get thats easy to carry around rather then a laptop that is as big as my LCD monitors at home. I happen to be a big fan of Dell computers there easy to get replacement parts and easy to repair. Screen shot of my Dell Mini 910. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lockon Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 I use several machines. For capturing/probing/listening, I use a Lenovo Thinkpad X120E, sort of like a buffed up netbook... you really don't need a lot of power to do those as Darren often demonstrates this on his Asus netbook. If you're going to use WPS-based attacks via Reaver, this is more than enough for that purpose. I also use a 2011 Macbook Pro for exploring/learning different tools with all of my pen software running in a VM (parallels) which I firmly believe is superior (and easier to use) than VMWare Fusion. You could say that this is my educational/experiment machine.However for decrypting/bruteforcing/wordlist/rainbow hash attacks, I use a mini-ATX box with a real GPU. So the idea is to capture the information you need on the Thinkpad/Macbook, export it to a usb flash drive, reimport it and process on the more powerful machine (mini-ATX box). My Thinkpad processes about 300 keys per second, the Macbook about 1800-1900 kps, the mini-ATX about 42,000 kps. The key thing here is no matter how powerful your laptop is, I don't believe you can get any GPU acceleration working if you run, say Backtrack/Kali in a VM because your video adapter gets assigned a virtual adapter driver (i.e. VMware SVGA), so you'll want to run it native or as a Live OS if you want that GPU acceleration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nancylin Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I am also looking to upgrade my notebook by month end,I need this for pentesting,running various pentesting tools,few VM simultaneously so there is no lag during multitask. Have seen few notebooks and finally came across recently launched Lenovo Y50,I am planning to go with it. http://www.thedostore.com/ideapad-y5059-431090.html 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 4710 HQ, 8 GB RAM, HYBRID 1TB 5400RPM SSHD(8G), 15.6 FHD TN(SLIM), N15P-GX GDDR5 4G, Win8.1 2xUSB3.0, 1xUSB 2.0,EXTERNAL 9.5MM DVD/RW The only one downfall I see is that it has the graphics card which is almost waste for me,as a pentester I am not a serious gamer. Any reviews on that,the machine itself or say its wifi? Thanks:smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishFavor Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 Personalty i like the Lenovo yoga 11 inch, alternatively the thinkpad yoga. Its small and compact good battery life converts to a tablet so has all the basic specs you'd expect core i5, 4GB of DDR3, SSD ect. the only downfall iv seen is the WiFi card however the issue with it not working in Linux has been addressed and resolved. pretty much everything you need is upgradeable (SSD, Memory, WIFI) and its not going to break the bank. I am currently running mine with a tipple boot of Win 8.1, ubuntu, and Kali. I also have a virtual box on the windows side with Kali on that for times when i don't need to reboot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i8igmac Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 (edited) Is price a problem? I picked up one of these display models at bestbuy for 900$ a few years ago.... absolutely love it... #1. Nvidia... 14000 pSk... wifi cracking machine... #2. Look at the vents on this machine. Overheat kills ALL... lost a few labtops already. #3. Cpu, ram, hd, its all performance machine... keys that glow was a must for me... When buying any new machine, don't get the best of the best.... new machines take a little time for kali to work out of the box... Edited October 23, 2014 by i8igmac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishFavor Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 i8igmac i like that beast of a machine, yea you can find some great deals on stuff when it goes EOL and the great thing is that it still has the MFG warranty even though you get a better deal on it. What Nvidia card is that btw and what size screen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i8igmac Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 i8igmac i like that beast of a machine, yea you can find some great deals on stuff when it goes EOL and the great thing is that it still has the MFG warranty even though you get a better deal on it. What Nvidia card is that btw and what size screen? geforce 560m... screen size is not at all small but im not sure of its size... i would love to upgraid look at all the new beastly options... cerealKiller:" Ill bet it looks crispy in the dark" zerocool:" Are you sure this thing is not going to waist" "maybe its to much machine for you" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IrishFavor Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 yea that's my only draw back is i want something small and light for work. i couldn't imagine lugging a 17" to work everyday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 I hear ya. My laptop bag weighs about 13 pounds in its lightest configuration, over 7 of that is my laptop itself... (HP Elitebook, about 3 years old now) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nancylin Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 Lenovo Yoga is good,but I am getting much much better config at almost the same price from same brand. Asus G-series are real beast same as alienware but the price difference is around $900 here in india which is huge if I compare the config.,I don't see any big difference in config. Lenovo Y50 15.6", i7 4710 HQ, 8 GB RAM, HYBRID 1TB 5400RPM SSHD(8G), N15P-GX GDDR5 4G, Win8.1, it doesn't have a inbuilt dvd writer but lenovo is giving an EXTERNAL 9.5MM DVD/RW with the package. Let me know your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vailixi Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 I picked up a Toshiba Satelite. It has Core i7 and 8gb of RAM. Does what I need. The onboard card wireless card doens't support injection mode. But I got an ALFA. The other problem I'm noticing with the S55 series laptops is the screens are crap. There is a line through my screen and it's been there since 2 days after I bought it. Performance wise it's fine other than not having GPU acceleration for cracking. If I had a little money I would get a gaming laptop just so I have some portable cracking power. If I had money to burn I would get a Eurocom or build something custom. I'm not sure if there are any other octa-core laptops on the market right now other than Eurocom. Tigerdirect has some laptop deals once in a while. You can subscribe to their mailing list and get notification on sales. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digip Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 I recently had to pick up a new machine and bit the bullet on windows 8 since I wanted a high end machine with as much memory I could get for my work. I also need a nice big screen which this one has 1920x1080, 12GB ram and a 5th gen i7 with nvidia GPU. It's big, awkward, but for my job, I needed it to be able to work on the road and have photoshop, illustrator, etc. You buy what you need though. If all you want is a small form factor with say, kali or smaller linux distro with a few tools, a chromebook with a chroot to another distro would probably work and save you a shit ton of money. Personally, I can't stand small laptops though. We have an Acer one for my daughter which doubles as our media center for the TV to stream hulu and surf from the tele, but other than that, the keyboards annoy me, and I alway use an external mouse for photoshop. I couldn't load and run it on her small laptop, while I could easily get away with an alpha and kali on it with no issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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