Penetration & Hacking into networks is not new. And as new as the Raspberry Pi is, it too is is being used to hack into systems and networks, which would not new a new idea. I would dare speculate the following: The Hacking of Sony and Hollywood in 2014-15 by the North Koreans was done on the Raspberry Pi or a clone thereof. How? How is not the question to ask. Why, then? The North Koreans are embargoed into a tight corner that they are not allowed to receive the newest and latest PC Equipment. This is similar to what the Soviet Block Nations faced in the late 80s before those sanctions were lifted. Any equipment given to them must be 3 to 5 generation behind the mainstream. Thus so is North Korea is now. But the Chinese makes a clone of the Raspberry Pi and has made millions of them for their educational and research market. The Koreans would have received a slice of that pie. So imagine - 20,000 North Korean Hackers on so many Raspberry Pies networked together trying to get into Sony and Hollywood's servers, eventually they would get in. Network intrusion does not care what machine you are using, as long as you are following the rules of network communications, you can break in.
 
Thus 20,000 North Korean Hackers on Raspberry Pis or Clones thereof, broke into Sony and Hollywood's servers. Not bad for a $35 computer. But this is only a theory...
 
I last talked about Kali Linux. This time it will be on PWNPI (3.0) and Parrot Security.
 
PWNPI has been around for quite a while, and it is one of the first books on the subject printed on it: "Penetration Testing on the Raspberry Pi"
https://www.packtpub.com/mapt/book/Networking+and+Servers/9781784396435/6/ch06lv l1sec46/PwnPi
(In fact, this link is the whole course based on it.)
 
And though Kali Linux has been around for a while, it is only recently ported to the Raspberry Pi and other Pi systems. PWNPI has been around since almost the beginning (circa 2013 or so). And it is free to install and download with most (not all) the tools to begin testing networks; unlike Kali Linux where you get the OS first and then you upload all the tools to it. It is openly available on SourceForge:
http://pwnpi.sourceforge.net/
http://pwnpi.sourceforge.net/index.html
https://hreikin.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/pwnpi-install-guide-raspberry-pi-penetr
ation-testing-distribution/
 
Parrot Security OS is for Cloud Based Penetration testing. Since everything is on the internet and people are crating their own "Clouds" on the net, it requires a different set of tools to get in. Sure, one can get in though the OS and worm their way through the system, but that is not testing the cloud server software. Thus Parrot Security and their associates are creating tools to test and penetrate cloud servers with.
https://www.parrotsec.org/
 
Parrot Security comes in several flavors like Kali Linux for the PC and Raspberry Pi. Unlike Kali and more like PWNPI, it comes complete with its own set of tools.
https://www.parrotsec.org/download.fx
 
The issue here is to use these tools to test a client's network, server software and websites against weaknesses. They can be but should not be ever used to maliciously attack a site or server. The idea of putting these tools into a system like a Raspberry Pi is to use the Pi system as a testing tool on site and make your client think "If this guy I hired can hack my system with a toy computer, then how really vulnerable am I?" This is where a security consultant makes half their money. The other half is made on reporting those weaknesses and providing answers to fix the issues.