Some of you may have noticed this new pWnOS forum section. I created pWnOS as a virtual machine and Grendel was nice enough to let me post about it here. Here's a bit of information on pWnOS.
It's a linux virtual machine intentionally configured with exploitable services to provide you with a path to r00t. :) Currently, the virtual machine NIC is configured in bridged networking, so it will obtain a normal IP address on the network you are connected to. You can easily change this to NAT or Host Only if you desire. A quick ping sweep will show the IP address of the virtual machine.
Sorry...no scenario/storyline with this one. I wasn't really planning to release it like this, so maybe for version 2.0 I'll be more creative. :) I'm anxious to get feedback so let me know how it goes or if you have questions. Thanks and good luck!
Source: http://forums.hackingdojo.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=149
Thanks for trying pWnOS 1.0. A few things to note before getting started. pWnOS is made using VMware Workstation and can be started by downloading VMware Server or Vmware player...both of which are free! Or VMware Workstation (Windows) or VMware Fusion (OS X), which are not free.
I would rate the difficulty of pWnOS approximately the same as De-Ice's level 2 disk...maybe a bit more difficult. See http://www.de-ice.net for information on the De-Ice penetration testing disks.
I hope you enjoy it! If you have any questions or feedback, email me at bond00(at)gmail.com
bond00
Source: pWnOS_v1.0.zip/pWnOS readme.txt