Prominent Infosec Personalities That Use OS X

By Daniel Miessler on April 19th, 2009: Tagged as Apple | Information Security | OS X

I often have to explain to other IT people (and even too many in infosec) why I prefer OS X as my primary operating system. If you lack the time to make a complete argument, one shortcut to giving strength to your position is to give a list of well-known security professionals that have made the same decision.

So here’s the beginning of this list; if you want to add someone to it, you can do so in the following ways:

  1. In the comments below
  2. Email it to me at daniel@dmiessler.com
  3. Tweet it to me with #macsec appended

And here are the people I know of off the top of my head (no particular order):

  • Martin Roesch
  • Mike Poor
  • Taylor Banks
  • Johannes Ulrich
  • Chris Hoff
  • Rich Mogull
  • Jeremiah Grossman?

I know there are a bunch of others I’ve known and can’t remember at the moment. That’s where you come in. ::

  • CarlM

    Disclaimer: I am a long-time, very satisfied, MAC OS user.

    Daniel, wouldn't this sort of argument really only have power if you could show that the percentage of Infosec types that use MAC OS is larger than the percentage of ALL computer users that use MAC OS?

    The overall market share of MAC OS is apparently somewhere around 10%. If you can show that MORE than 10% of Infosec types use MAC OS, then you've got some evidence you can point to. But, as you say, any of this is just a shortcut answer and may need to be supplemented by actual reasons (which abound I'm sure).

  • http://wicked-styles.com/bitsandpieces/ Doc Rice

    I can somewhat see why Joe Average IT Guy might not understand your choice in OS X, but I'm surprised you'd be questioned by infosec types. I touch OS X myself sometimes, but I'm more Windows / Linux focused for my tools given the kind of work I do. That said, I personally wouldn't hesitate to use OS X as my platform if I did mostly security work.

    If you have to justify your use of a particular platform to someone, I'm not sure if merely stating that x other security pros diong the same thing is going to make a convincing statement because it's still somewhat vague. Especially for people doing security, it's probably more helpful to understand exact reasons rather than “because a bunch of other folks doing the same work likes it.” I do some minor “security” work and I know I prefer specific answers rather than broad, generalized references that really don't clarify anything.

    Maybe it's also because many people have the image of over-zealous Apple fanboys in their heads.

  • http://dmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

    This is a good idea; I'm going to compare speakers at major security conferences combined with instructors at major security training events (e.g. SANS), and then compare OS X marketshare.

  • Michael S Black

    It's just an observation, not a scientific sample, but i did notice a LOT more Mac's at BlackHat/Defcon this year than I have seen previously…

  • Michael S Black

    ohh and you forgot Joe Grand aka Kingpin from L0pht

  • Michael S Black

    ohh and you forgot Joe Grand aka Kingpin from L0pht


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