Kali Signing Key Fix¶

Abstract

Kali Linux experienced a Signing Key issue that impacts environments released prior to May 2025. As a result, apt functionality is no longer available, affecting your ability to apply updates and install new packages through apt. This article explains the symptoms and how to resolve this issue in older Kali Linux releases from the Virginia Cyber Range.

Symptoms¶

When running apt commands such as apt update, the command will fail with a signature or public key error similar to:

# apt update
Get:1 http://kali.download/kali kali-rolling InRelease [41.5 kB]
Err:1 http://kali.download/kali kali-rolling InRelease
  The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY ED65462EC8D5E4C5
Fetched 41.5 kB in 0s (89.1 kB/s)
All packages are up to date.    
Warning: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: http://kali.download/kali kali-rolling InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY ED65462EC8D5E4C5
Warning: Failed to fetch http://kali.download/kali/dists/kali-rolling/InRelease  The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY ED65462EC8D5E4C5
Warning: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Solution¶

To resolve the issue, please run the following commands in the Kali Linux environment:

sudo -E wget https://archive.kali.org/archive-keyring.gpg -O /usr/share/keyrings/kali-archive-keyring.gpg
sudo apt update

Have a Question? Contact Support¶

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