[krylon]

> For the security researchers out there, mainframes are really under-researched.

I suspect it has to do with the price tag. For Windows/Linux, I can just install the system on a random PC I have lying around, or at least buy a PC for very little money (in the grand scheme of things). With mainframes, few companies have one just standing around for you to tinker with. If IBM were willing to license z/OS (and their other mainframe OSes) to run on Hercules for such purposes, that might go a long way. But so far they seem to have no interest in that.

Casual exploration of the platform becomes very hard when a small mainframe is... what? $/€ 100,000?

And the complexity of the platform encourages specialization. (Try asking a competent Windows/Linux guy a mainframe question, they will probably give you a blank stare as well. FWIW, I am a Windows/Linux guy, too, I just was lucky enough to have a brief stint in a mainframe team during my training.)