aid: censys
name: Censys
description: >-
  Censys is an internet intelligence and attack surface management platform that continuously
  scans the public IPv4 space, IPv6 announced ranges, and the global certificate transparency
  ecosystem to produce a comprehensive public dataset of internet-connected hosts, services,
  certificates, and web properties. The Censys Platform exposes this data through a unified
  REST API supporting host/web/certificate search, collections, threat hunting, adversary
  investigation, asset graph traversal, and supply-chain intelligence — making it a primary
  alternative to Shodan for security researchers, SOC teams, threat hunters, and attack-surface
  management programs.
url: https://search.censys.io/api
humanURL: https://docs.censys.com
baseURL: https://api.platform.censys.io
image: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/9468155?s=200&v=4
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-05-28'
modified: '2026-05-29'
x-source: public-apis/public-apis
x-category: Security
x-tier: 2
x-tier-reason: enriched-full-pipeline-2026-05-29
tags:
- Security
- Internet Intelligence
- Attack Surface Management
- Threat Hunting
- Cyber Threat Intelligence
- OSINT
- Internet Scanning
- Certificates
- Asset Discovery
apis:
- name: Censys Platform API
  description: >-
    The Censys Platform API is the unified next-generation interface to the Censys
    internet intelligence dataset. It supersedes the legacy Censys Search v1/v2 APIs
    and Censys ASM API by exposing global asset lookups (hosts, certificates, web
    properties), Collections, Threat Hunting (CensEye, fingerprints, threats),
    Adversary Investigation (live discovery scans, certificate-to-host pivots), Account
    Management (organizations, credits, audit logs), Supply Chain Intelligence, and
    Tags / Comments through a single Personal Access Token model and Censys Query
    Language (CenQL).
  humanURL: https://docs.censys.com/reference
  baseURL: https://api.platform.censys.io
  tags:
  - Security
  - Internet Intelligence
  - Threat Hunting
  - Attack Surface Management
  - Certificates
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.censys.com
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://docs.censys.com/reference
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/censys-platform-openapi.yml
  - type: Postman
    url: postman/censys-search.postman_collection.json
  - type: Postman
    url: postman/censys-asm.postman_collection.json
    title: Censys ASM Postman Collection
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://accounts.censys.io/settings/personal-access-tokens
    title: Personal Access Tokens
  - type: Quickstart
    url: https://docs.censys.com/docs/platform-quickstart
  - type: SDK
    url: https://pypi.org/project/censys-platform/
    title: Python SDK (censys-platform)
  - type: SDK
    url: https://github.com/censys/censys-sdk-typescript
    title: TypeScript SDK
  - type: SDK
    url: https://github.com/censys/censys-sdk-go
    title: Go SDK
  - type: SDK
    url: https://pypi.org/project/censys/
    title: Python SDK Legacy (censys-python)
  - type: ChangeLog
    url: https://docs.censys.com/changelog
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-account-management.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-adversary-investigation.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-collections.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-global-data.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-supply-chain-intelligence.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-tags-and-comments.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/platform-threat-hunting.yaml
  - type: JSON-LD
    url: json-ld/censys-platform-context.jsonld
- name: Censys Asset Graph API
  description: >-
    The Censys Asset Graph API powers attack-surface graph traversal. It lets
    customers define asset graphs from seed assets (IPs, domains, certificates),
    execute graph build runs, page through the resulting nodes (assets) and edges
    (relationships), manage excluded assets, and pull risk findings per asset_id.
    It is the dedicated graph-construction layer that complements the Platform
    API's per-record host/cert/web lookups.
  humanURL: https://docs.censys.com
  baseURL: https://graph.data.censys.io
  tags:
  - Security
  - Attack Surface Management
  - Asset Graph
  - Risk
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://docs.censys.com
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/censys-asset-graph-openapi.yml
  - type: SDK
    url: https://github.com/censys/censys-asset-graph-sdk-go
    title: Go SDK (Asset Graph)
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-asset-graphs.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-assets.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-excluded-assets.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-graph-executions.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-risks.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-seeds.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/asset-graph-shards.yaml
  - type: JSON-LD
    url: json-ld/censys-asset-graph-context.jsonld
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://censys.com
- type: Portal
  url: https://platform.censys.io
- type: SignUp
  url: https://accounts.censys.io/register
- type: Pricing
  url: https://censys.com/pricing/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://censys.com/terms-of-service/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://censys.com/privacy-policy/
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://status.censys.io
- type: Blog
  url: https://censys.com/blog/
- type: Support
  url: https://support.censys.io
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/censys
- type: CLI
  url: https://github.com/censys/cencli
  title: cencli — Censys Platform CLI
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/censys-splunk
  title: Splunk Add-on and Apps
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/censys-platform-splunk-soar
  title: Splunk SOAR Connector
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/censys-googlesecops-dashboard
  title: Google SecOps Dashboard
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/censys-cloud-connector
  title: Censys Unified Cloud Connector (AWS / Azure / GCP)
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/censys-maltego
  title: Maltego Transforms
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/censys-recon-ng
  title: recon-ng Modules
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/nmap-censys
  title: nmap NSE Script
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/censys/recog
  title: Recog — Pattern Recognition
- type: Tools
  url: https://github.com/schwarztim/sec-censys-mcp
  title: MCP Server (Community — sec-censys-mcp)
- type: PublicAPIsListing
  url: https://github.com/public-apis/public-apis
- type: Plans
  url: plans/censys-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/censys-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/censys-finops.yml
- type: SpectralRules
  url: rules/censys-spectral-rules.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/censys-vocabulary.yml
- type: JSON-LD
  url: json-ld/censys-context.jsonld
- type: Features
  data:
  - name: Global Internet Asset Index
    description: Continuously refreshed host, service, certificate, and web-property dataset spanning the public IPv4 space, announced IPv6 ranges, and the global Certificate Transparency log ecosystem.
  - name: Censys Query Language (CenQL)
    description: Unified, expressive query language used across hosts, certificates, and web properties — replaces the legacy Censys Search Language (CSL).
  - name: Collections
    description: Saved asset groupings that can be queried, aggregated, and monitored with events, webhooks, and email notifications.
  - name: Threat Hunting (CensEye)
    description: Automated pivot engine that hunts adversary infrastructure across host endpoints, fingerprints, certificates, and threats with on-demand discovery scans.
  - name: Adversary Investigation
    description: Certificate-to-host and host-to-endpoint pivots, value-count enrichment, and live re-scan endpoints purpose-built for investigating malicious infrastructure.
  - name: Asset Graph
    description: Graph-based attack surface composition — define seeds, build graphs, page through assets/edges, manage exclusions, and read per-asset risks.
  - name: Supply Chain Intelligence
    description: Track third-party supplier exposure and supply-chain risk against the Censys asset dataset.
  - name: Account Management
    description: Organization, membership, invitation, audit-log, credit, and per-user credit-usage APIs for tenant administration.
  - name: Tags and Comments
    description: First-class annotation surface for tagging and commenting on assets across the platform.
  - name: Integrations (Splunk, SOAR, Google SecOps, Maltego, recon-ng, nmap)
    description: Official connectors and community tooling for the major SOC / threat-intel ecosystems.
  - name: Legacy Search and ASM Compatibility
    description: Censys Search v1/v2 and Censys ASM APIs remain available during the migration window; ASM endpoints are not deprecated.
- type: UseCases
  data:
  - name: External Attack Surface Management
    description: Discover unknown assets, monitor exposure, and prioritize risk across an organization's internet-facing footprint.
  - name: Threat Hunting
    description: Pivot across certificates, services, and endpoints to track adversary infrastructure with CensEye-driven discovery scans.
  - name: Adversary Investigation
    description: Investigate IPs, certificates, and hosts associated with known malicious activity; rescan suspect infrastructure on demand.
  - name: SOC Triage and Enrichment
    description: Enrich alerts in Splunk / SOAR / Google SecOps with Censys host, service, and certificate context.
  - name: Vulnerability Discovery
    description: Identify exposed services, deprecated TLS versions, and known-vulnerable software footprints at internet scale.
  - name: Certificate Inventory
    description: Search the certificate-transparency-backed corpus for organizational PKI inventory and rogue/expired cert detection.
  - name: Subdomain and Asset Discovery
    description: Enumerate subdomains and related assets via certificate, DNS, and IP-graph pivots.
  - name: Supply Chain Risk
    description: Track supplier exposure and weak links across third-party internet-facing assets.
  - name: Academic and Internet Measurement Research
    description: Long-running Censys research mission supporting peer-reviewed internet-scale measurement studies.
- type: Integrations
  data:
  - name: Splunk
    description: Censys Splunk Add-on and Apps for SIEM enrichment and dashboards.
  - name: Splunk SOAR
    description: Censys SOAR connector for automated response playbooks.
  - name: Google SecOps (Chronicle)
    description: Censys Google SecOps dashboard for SOC operations on Chronicle.
  - name: Microsoft Sentinel
    description: Documented integration path for ingesting Censys data into Sentinel.
  - name: Maltego
    description: Censys Maltego transforms for graph-based investigations.
  - name: recon-ng
    description: Censys modules for the recon-ng reconnaissance framework.
  - name: nmap
    description: NSE script that leverages Censys data for passive recon.
  - name: AWS / Azure / GCP
    description: Censys Unified Cloud Connector pulls cloud-native asset inventory into Censys ASM.
  - name: Jira and ServiceNow
    description: ASM ticketing/workflow integrations for asset and risk remediation tracking.
  - name: Postman
    description: Censys-published Postman collections for Search and ASM APIs.
- type: Solutions
  data:
  - name: Censys Platform
    description: Unified next-gen Censys interface for search, collections, threat hunting, and asset graph traversal.
  - name: Censys Attack Surface Management (ASM)
    description: Continuous external attack-surface monitoring with risk scoring, integrations, and remediation workflows.
  - name: Censys Threat Hunting
    description: Advanced pivoting, CensEye automation, Censys Threat Dataset, and on-demand scanning for proactive infrastructure hunting.
  - name: Censys Search (Legacy)
    description: Original search.censys.io interface — Search v1/v2 APIs being migrated to the Platform API.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com