"apt-get update" Fails? (Kali Linux with Virtual Box)

The solution is to change mirror in sources.list file. For some reason the default mirror is not working.

There are several mirrors of the Kali Linux repository server, all of which are spread over the world. Each time you interact with the repository, by default it will automatically use the mirror that is closest to you based on your geoip location (idea being, this will give you the best speed due to less latency).

However, you can manually force kali to use a certain/different mirror rather than the one that is nearest you.

Go to http://http.kali.org/README.mirrorlist where you will have a list of mirrors to chose from.

First backup your current source file

mv /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.backup

Then create a new sources.list file

vim /etc/apt/sources.list

and enter new mirror.

For example,

old sources.list file was

deb http://http.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free

The new sources.list file can be

deb http://archive-2.kali.org/kali kali-rolling main contrib non-free

Here you have to play around a little bit to find the mirror that works for you.

Then in terminal type:

sudo apt clean
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt dist-upgrade