Patrick Wardle
Former NSA hacker turned macOS security's most persistent auditor and supplier of free tools.
Wardle worked at NASA and the NSA before specialising in Apple's platform. Under the Objective-See name he publishes free tools for macOS: KnockKnock lists what launches automatically, BlockBlock warns when something tries to install itself persistently, LuLu is an outbound firewall, and OverSight alerts when the microphone or camera switches on.
He has found a long string of holes in Apple's own protections, often by showing that Gatekeeper or the permission prompts could be bypassed with something embarrassingly simple. In 2018 he started the Objective by the Sea conference, and in 2022 published The Art of Mac Malware — a corrective to the durable myth that Macs don't get viruses.