I was really surprised to see that there’s not a lot of information on the subject of using Mac OS X as a pen testing/hacking platform. With all of the benefits and features of the Mac OS X, there is no reason to not use Mac OS X for your pen testing platform. You also have powerful scripting languages installed such as Perl and Python. Since Mac OS X is a UNIX based operating system, you get great tools that come natively with UNIX operating systems such as netcat and SSH. My goal is to get most, if not all, of the tools I use installed on my MacBook Pro and run them natively within OS X. I wanted to expand the toolset of my Mac, so I started with Nessus, nmap, SQLMap, and then I installed Metasploit.

I recently started installing my hacking tools on my MacBook Pro. My attack laptop happens to be a MacBook Pro and I started out running VirtualBox with a BackTrack Linux virtual machine. Also by running the tools within OS X, you will be able to seamlessly access all of your Mac OS X applications. This also eliminates the need to transfer files between your operating system and a virtual machine, and the hassles of having to deal with a virtual machine. Another benefit is not having to share your system resources with a virtual machine. While this is a great option, sometimes it is nice to have your tools running on the native operating system of your computer.