Kali is designed as a pentest tool, not as a daily secure OS for the average user.
It just switched from "everything running as root" to at least have a dedicated user account recently (year or two, don't remember exact). But still, it's designed to get stuff done during a pentest.
It's an awesome distro, don't get me wrong. It's just that it is not designed to be a secure OS for a regular user.
I agree on home computers not being that much more safe using a non-admin account. Especially since that non-admin account being an admin account. UAC is trivial to bypass most of the time.
However, running most of your system as non-root is NOT a security theatre. It might seem so, but security needs layers. There is a reason privesc is it's own step in compromising a system. On a well configured system it is not trivial to do. It also makes some noise and generates an audit trail that can be detected (not so much for home users).
An attacker can gain access to user files (those should be protected with proper backup), but completely compromising a system opens up a wide area of opportunities. It's also the first step to have any chance at avoiding detection.
Kali is not designed to be Secure (Score:5, Informative)
It just switched from "everything running as root" to at least have a dedicated user account recently (year or two, don't remember exact).
But still, it's designed to get stuff done during a pentest.
It's an awesome distro, don't get me wrong. It's just that it is not designed to be a secure OS for a regular user.
Re: Kali is not designed to be Secure (Score:0)
That is security theater though.
Securing off the OS but not all the actually important files of the user.
It only makes sense on a multi-user system used by people that might not be trustworthy.
On a home PC, if somebody got into your user account... you're already fucked.
I actually like Android's system. Where every programmer, and even every app, gets its own user. And they are all separate from your data.
Re: Kali is not designed to be Secure (Score:2)
However, running most of your system as non-root is NOT a security theatre. It might seem so, but security needs layers. There is a reason privesc is it's own step in compromising a system. On a well configured system it is not trivial to do. It also makes some noise and generates an audit trail that can be detected (not so much for home users).
An attacker can gain access to user files (those should be protected with proper backup), but completely compromising a system opens up a wide area of opportunities. It's also the first step to have any chance at avoiding detection.