Censys

Censys is a cybersecurity company that provides an internet intelligence platform for threat hunting and attack surface management. The company’s mission is “to be the one place to understand everything on the internet.” Censys aims to provide the most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date map of global internet infrastructure to empower security and intelligence teams. Its goal is to give organizations the visibility they need to proactively fight threats by analyzing real-time internet data.

Censys was founded by computer scientists at the University of Michigan who created ZMap, an open-source network scanner. The company is considered a key player in the cybersecurity industry, serving a diverse clientele that includes Fortune 500 companies, government agencies like the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and security researchers. Its platform is used to discover, monitor, and analyze devices accessible from the internet, helping organizations understand their network attack surfaces and identify new threats. The company is recognized for its comprehensive data and its role in enhancing cybersecurity through visibility.

Offerings, Capabilities, and Integrations

Censys provides a platform for attack surface management and threat intelligence, offering a comprehensive and up-to-date map of the internet. The company’s core strength lies in its extensive and continuous scanning of the entire IPv4 address space, which allows it to discover and monitor internet-connected assets for its customers. This capability provides organizations with real-time visibility into their external digital footprint, including known and unknown assets across the internet and in the cloud. Censys’s offerings are delivered as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, providing users with access to internet intelligence data.

Censys’s competitive edge is rooted in its data-centric approach, which emphasizes the breadth, depth, and freshness of its internet scans. The company scans daily across a vast number of ports, which it claims gives it a more comprehensive view than its competitors. This extensive data collection, combined with its attribution engine, enables the discovery of a larger attack surface for its clients. The platform also features an integrations marketplace, allowing customers to connect Censys data with other security and IT tools to streamline workflows. These integrations with vendors like ServiceNow and Qualys enhance the platform’s utility by enabling automated ticketing, vulnerability prioritization, and asset management.

Products and Services

Censys offers a suite of products and services designed to provide organizations with visibility into their internet-facing assets and potential security risks. Its flagship product is the Censys Attack Surface Management (ASM) platform. A newer offering is the Censys Threat Hunting solution, launched in April 2025.

• Censys Attack Surface Management (ASM): This is Censys’s core offering, providing continuous discovery and monitoring of an organization’s external digital assets. It automatically identifies and inventories internet-facing hosts, services, websites, and cloud assets, helping security teams to identify and prioritize risks. The ASM platform includes features for risk assessment, providing context on vulnerabilities and potential exploits.
• Censys Search: This is a powerful search engine that allows users to explore Censys’s vast dataset of internet-connected devices and services. It is used by security researchers, threat hunters, and enterprises to investigate threats, understand their attack surface, and conduct research. Censys offers different tiers of its search product, including a free community version, as well as paid tiers for individuals and teams (Censys Search Solo and Censys Search Teams).
• Censys Threat Hunting: This solution is specifically designed for security teams to proactively track and investigate adversary infrastructure. It provides structured, actionable insights from Censys’s internet map data to help hunters identify malicious infrastructure and accelerate investigations. Key features include a dedicated threat dataset and “CensEye” for correlating malicious infrastructure.
• Integrations Marketplace: Censys provides a marketplace of pre-built integrations with various security and IT vendors. This allows customers to connect Censys’s data and insights with their existing tools for security information and event management (SIEM), IT service management (ITSM), and vulnerability management.

Target Customers

Censys targets a broad range of customers, from large enterprises to individual security practitioners. Its primary market includes enterprise organizations across various industries that need to manage their external attack surface and improve their security posture. Over half of the Fortune 500 are reported to be Censys customers.

The company’s products and services are designed to benefit several key customer segments:

• Enterprise Security Teams: These teams use Censys’s Attack Surface Management platform to gain complete visibility of their internet-exposed assets, including those that are unknown or part of “shadow IT”. This helps them to identify and remediate security risks, manage vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance.
• Threat Intelligence and Security Operations (SOC) Teams: These teams leverage Censys Search and the Threat Hunting solution to investigate threats, track adversary infrastructure, and enrich their security alerts. The platform’s comprehensive and historical data allows for deep-dive investigations and proactive threat hunting.
• Government Agencies: Censys is a data provider to various global government agencies. These agencies use Censys’s data to identify threats from nation-state actors, conduct historical analysis, and manage critical infrastructure.
• Security Researchers and Academic Institutions: The security research community utilizes Censys Search to analyze internet-wide security trends, discover new threats, and conduct studies on internet infrastructure.

Cloud Integrations and Marketplaces

Censys offers several cloud integrations to connect its Attack Surface Management (ASM) platform with major cloud providers. The company also maintains a presence on select cloud marketplaces.

• Censys Integrations Marketplace: In May 2024, Censys launched its own Integrations Marketplace. This platform is designed to provide a streamlined and automated way for security teams to integrate various security tools and vendors with the Censys platform.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS): Censys provides a Cloud Connector for AWS to enumerate a customer’s cloud environment and ensure the data in its Attack Surface Management platform is current. The integration can be configured through the Censys ASM console or via API. Censys also has a listing on the AWS Marketplace for “Censys Search – Teams,” which is available through a private offer.
• Microsoft Azure: A Censys Cloud Connector for Azure is available to scan a user’s cloud environment and identify public assets, feeding updated information into the Censys ASM platform. Configuration can be done within the ASM user interface or through the API. Additionally, Censys offers a plugin for Microsoft Security Copilot, which allows users to query the Censys Global Index and retrieve information on IP addresses, certificates, and web properties from within the Copilot interface.
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Censys offers a Cloud Connector for GCP that enumerates a cloud environment to keep the Censys Attack Surface Management platform updated with the most current data on public assets. The setup for this integration can be managed via the Censys ASM console or its API. Censys does not have a public listing on the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Key People

• Chief Executive Officer: Brad Brooks
• Co-Founder and Chief Scientist: Zakir Durumeric
• Chief Revenue Officer: Sarah Ashburn
• Chief Financial Officer: Kathleen Thomas
• Chief Marketing Officer: Dayna Rothman
• Chief People Officer: J. B.
• Chief Technology Officer: A. G.
• Vice President of Federal: T. H.
• Vice President of Corporate Marketing: R. B.
• Vice President of Technical Services: R. C.

Key Facts

• Headquarters Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US.
• Number of Employees: 150-200.
• Annual Revenue: $15 million – $50 million.
• Parent Company: None.
• Subsidiary Companies: None.
• Publicly Listed: No, the company is privately held.

Analyst Recognition

Gartner and Forrester include Censys in the technology category of External Attack Surface Management (EASM). While Censys is not placed in a comparative, formal analyst report such as a Gartner Magic Quadrant or a Forrester Wave, it is recognized by these analyst groups.

• Gartner: Censys is included in Gartner’s research on the External Attack Surface Management market. Gartner Peer Insights, a platform for customer reviews, features ratings and reviews for Censys Attack Surface Management.
• Forrester: Forrester has engaged with Censys by commissioning a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study on Censys’s External Attack Surface Management platform. This report, driven by customer interviews, analyzes the financial impact and benefits of using the Censys platform.
• IDC: There is no information available to indicate that IDC formally recognizes Censys in its market analyses for External Attack Surface Management.
• Everest Group: There is no information available to indicate that the Everest Group formally recognizes Censys in its research.