What is Censys used for?

Censys is an internet intelligence and attack surface management platform built on continuous scanning of internet-facing hosts and services. It is a good fit for mapping an organization's external exposure, threat hunting in a security operations center and monitoring critical infrastructure exposure.

Yes. Censys has a free plan. A free account gives basic visibility. Core, Adversary Investigation, Security Operations, ASM and Government plans are quoted by sales; credit packages start at $100.

Is Censys open source?

No. Censys is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Censys include IVRE.

What are some alternatives to Censys?

Censys competes with Shodan, Rapid7 and Tenable. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Censys alternatives.

Censys: features, pricing and alternatives

About Censys

Censys is a commercial security platform that maps what is reachable on the internet and turns that data into intelligence for security teams. It combines internet scan data with products for search, investigation and attack surface management, so teams can see their external exposure and research threats.

The product line includes Censys Search, Censys Core, Adversary Investigation, Attack Surface Management and Critical Infrastructure Monitoring, backed by an Internet Map and integrations with other security tools. The company also publishes research through its ARC team and promotes use cases such as SOC modernization, adversary threat hunting and external exposure management for sectors including energy, finance, government and healthcare.

Key features

Internet-wide scan data and search
Attack surface management
Adversary investigation and threat hunting
Critical infrastructure monitoring
Integrations with security tooling
Host and IP enrichment

Good fit for

→Mapping an organization's external exposure
→Threat hunting in a security operations center
→Monitoring critical infrastructure exposure

Tags: security; attack-surface-management; internet-scanning; threat-intelligence; threat-hunting; soc

Censys: questions and answers

What is Censys used for?: Censys is an internet intelligence and attack surface management platform built on continuous scanning of internet-facing hosts and services. It is a good fit for mapping an organization's external exposure, threat hunting in a security operations center and monitoring critical infrastructure exposure.
Is Censys free?: Yes. Censys has a free plan. A free account gives basic visibility. Core, Adversary Investigation, Security Operations, ASM and Government plans are quoted by sales; credit packages start at $100.
Is Censys open source?: No. Censys is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Censys include IVRE.
What are some alternatives to Censys?: Censys competes with Shodan, Rapid7 and Tenable. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Censys alternatives.