Hi guys,

i've recently gotten hold of a macbook and i gotta say that i'm totally lovin it.  Now I have it running pretty well with kismet (yes that's kismet), nmap, metasploiot, ettercap etc... and all seems to be working well.

My question is, do any of you pentesters out there use a mac as your main pentest platform? or  through experience have you found it to not be as flexible as Linux?

i've done a little testing in the week that i've had it and it seems to be working well but I just wondered if theres a "gotcha" just waiting to happen.

Any thoughts on this would be great.

Cheers

Syn

p.s Has anyone read Johnny Long's book on OS X Hacking and if so was it any good?

After getting the mac I too am poor, and my family are pretty hungry!

Malware

Why do you choose linux rather than OS X, is it familiarity or a shortcoming with OS X as a pentest platform?

After setting up macports the apps i use seem to download and work pretty good.  But i an see myself having a Linux VM to hand just in case.

Rather than VM Fusion i opted for Parallels though, being a total Mac newb could you tell me if VM Fusion is preffered and why?

Cheers

Syn

I'm currently rocking a MBP. Mac Ports have most things, and I fall back to a Samurai/BT3 installation on VM Fusion if needed.

There's quite a Fusion Vs Parrallels argument on various different sites (also if it's a linux guest OS you're looking at, I've heard good things of VirtualBox) and with the current releases they're about neck and neck. I chose Fusion because of my familiarity with  VM products. There are some arguments about better video hardware acceleration, but if it that important go bootcamp and install whatever OS you want.

I've also got the OSX for Hackers book, it's good but it's starting to look a bit dated (there's a chapter on setting up kisMAC which is no longer needed as kismet works fine from ports), but if you're totally new to OSX it's worth a quick read.

I'm still with the "whatever you're most comfortable with" camp, I just happen to be comfortable with overpriced eyecandy

I also have a MacBook that i LOVE for pen testing.  The only thing i hated was i would have to reboot to BT to do packet injection, and a few other wireless tools, that is till i found this baby:

hxxps://shop.fon.com/FonShop/shop/US/ShopController?view=product&product=PRD-001

Currently going for $29, but you can find promos and codes all the time to get them for $5 or sometimes free!  And the antenna comes right off to put something a bit bigger on it.  Then you take it and put this firmware on it:

hxxp://fonerahacks.com/index.php/Tutorials-and-Guides/Flash-Legend-Firmware-to-Fonera.html

And now you have a little guy, that can do all kinds of fun things, running Airserv so that you can actually do the computing on your machine while the packets are grabbed via the Fon.  Man it works like a charm, and i even built a batter pack on mine out of 4 AAs so that I don't have to use a power adapter

Zac

I'd get a Mac just for their physical design, but I'd probably just end up wiping out OS X and running Linux 100%.

You can right click.
http://lifehacker.com/software/mac-tip/right+click-from-the-trackpad-323322.php

Also, the one button looking mouse also senses your finger and will allow you to right click if you enable the options (I forget where it is and I don't have one in front of me).