CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Censys vs NCC Group

Censys supports investigations with real-time Internet infrastructure visibility and historical context. NCC Group is a global cyber security and resilience company with over 2000 colleagues around the world. CISO Tribune files both under External attack surface management. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Censys
  • NCC Group
Censys vs NCC Group: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
CensysCensys supports investigations with real-time Internet infrastructure visibility and historical context.censys.comNCC GroupNCC Group is a global cyber security and resilience company with over 2000 colleagues around the world.nccgroup.com
What it sells
  • Censys Platform[3][8][17][18][19][20][21]Delivers visibility and intelligence for triage, threat investigation, adversary hunting and Internet exposure management.
  • Censys ASM[8]Reveals Internet-facing assets, services and exposures across all 65,535 ports.
  • Adversary Investigation[3][4][5][9][17][19]An add-on module to the Censys Platform to detect, analyze and track threat infrastructure.
  • cencli[20]A command line tool for running search queries, looking up assets and performing aggregations.
  • Penetration Testing Services[1]Security assessments that test an organization's systems to find weaknesses.
  • Continuous Penetration Testing[1]Ongoing testing of environments rather than a single point-in-time engagement.
  • Managed Extended Detection & Response (MXDR)[1]A managed service that monitors customer environments and detects and responds to threats, offered for Microsoft and Splunk tooling.
  • Attack Surface Management[1]Continuous monitoring of an organization's external-facing assets from an attacker's perspective.
  • Cyber Incident Response Retainer[1]A retainer service providing digital forensics and incident response support for critical assets.
  • Online Exposure Monitoring[1]Continuous monitoring of the surface, deep and dark web to reduce the risk and impact of cyber attacks.
Categories
Headquarters
Ann Arbor, United States[2][21]Not stated on its pages
Founded
2017[1]Not stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
  • September 22, 2026Censys announced an expanded global Channel Partner Program and investments to accelerate its channel-first growth strategy.[14]
  • July 22, 2026Censys announced record first half 2026 growth, reflecting growing enterprise adoption of Internet intelligence.[13]
  • July 8, 2026Censys expanded its Internet Map to include real-time DNS visibility.[25]
  • June 18, 2026Censys announced its expansion into security operations, enabling organizations to use its internet intelligence across security workflows.[26]
  • June 18, 2026Censys announced its expansion into security operations, enabling organizations to use its Internet intelligence across security workflows.[12]
Not stated on its pages
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[6]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 10, 2026[13]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
From its own pages, Censys sells to private and public sector security teams. Censys describes a plan for threat hunting and CTI teams looking to hunt, track and engineer detections for adversary campaigns and infrastructure. Censys describes a plan for enterprises that want to use Censys data across alert triage, IR, threat intel and detection engineering. Censys offers purpose-built internet intelligence with specialized datasets for government specific investigations and exposure management requirements. Censys offers Single Sign-On through a SAML-based integration to Enterprise and Government users.NCC Group also addresses Hyperscalers and their clients that are undertaking cloud transformation. Industrial organizations facing regulatory complexity across global operations and supply chains are another group it addresses. Its customer examples include a private university and a major professional services client.
Last verified
September 27, 2026November 4, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Censys and NCC Group are both filed under External attack surface management.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Censys's primary category is External attack surface management; NCC Group's is Penetration testing and red team services.
  • Censys is also filed under Threat intelligence. NCC Group is also filed under Incident response and forensics and MDR and managed SOC.
  • Censys lists Censys Platform, Censys ASM, Adversary Investigation and cencli. NCC Group lists Penetration Testing Services, Continuous Penetration Testing, Managed Extended Detection & Response (MXDR), Attack Surface Management, Cyber Incident Response Retainer and 1 more.
  • Censys is headquartered in Ann Arbor, United States.
  • Censys was founded in 2017.

What it sells: Censys

What Censys Platform does[3][8][17][18][19][20][21]
Censys Platform has API endpoints for integrating Platform functionality with a customer tech stack. Censys Platform uses a language called Censys Query Language. Censys Platform includes a web property dataset covering name-based assets on the internet, including websites, APIs and web-based applications.
What Censys ASM does[8]
Censys ASM uses first-party scanning to find Internet-exposed assets, including services on nonstandard ports, self-signed certificates, hosts in residential networks and dangling DNS records. Censys ASM sends alerts on changes such as new hosts and services, open ports and reissued certificates. Censys ranks risks by severity, category and affected asset.
What Adversary Investigation does[3][4][5][9][17][19]
The Adversary Investigation module is an add-on to the Censys Platform for organizations to detect, analyze and track threat infrastructure. Actions that use CensEye to discover related infrastructure for a host, web property or certificate are only available to users with access to the Adversary Investigation module.

Questions about Censys and NCC Group

What do Censys and NCC Group sell?
Censys sells Censys Platform, Censys ASM, Adversary Investigation and cencli. NCC Group sells Penetration Testing Services, Continuous Penetration Testing, Managed Extended Detection & Response (MXDR), Attack Surface Management, Cyber Incident Response Retainer and 1 more.
Are Censys and NCC Group in the same category?
They share External attack surface management. Censys's primary category is External attack surface management and NCC Group's is Penetration testing and red team services.
Where are Censys and NCC Group headquartered?
Censys is headquartered in Ann Arbor, United States.
When were Censys and NCC Group founded?
Censys was founded in 2017.
Who are Censys and NCC Group sold to?
From its own pages, Censys sells to private and public sector security teams. NCC Group also addresses Hyperscalers and their clients that are undertaking cloud transformation.
What have Censys and NCC Group announced recently?
September 22, 2026: Censys announced an expanded global Channel Partner Program and investments to accelerate its channel-first growth strategy.

About Censys

Censys supports investigations with real-time Internet infrastructure visibility and historical context. Censys supports tracking attacker infrastructure and uncovering related assets. Censys supports discovering unknown assets, identifying critical risks and protecting an external attack surface. Censys supports identifying third-party risk by continuously monitoring supplier Internet exposure. Censys names Global 2000 enterprises and governments as the organizations that choose it for Security Operations and Exposure Management. Censys ARC publishes original research covering emerging threats, attacker infrastructure, vulnerabilities and Internet-wide exposure.[8][10]

Censys ASM reveals Internet-facing assets, services and exposures across all 65,535 ports, using the Censys Internet Map. Censys maps the global internet across all 65K ports to show what attackers, customers and regulators can see. Censys ASM uses first-party scanning to find Internet-exposed assets, including services on nonstandard ports, self-signed certificates, hosts in residential networks and dangling DNS records. Censys maps the JavaScript libraries, web technologies and plugins running across an environment, then detects and flags the vulnerabilities and risks present.[8][16]

Censys ASM monitors a surface continuously and sends alerts on changes such as new hosts and services, open ports and reissued certificates. Censys ranks risks by severity, category and affected asset. Censys ASM integrates with ticketing, SIEM, vulnerability management and other tooling to auto-create, route and track remediation tasks. The Censys Assistant takes plain-language questions about an inventory, such as which CVEs affect it or which cloud providers are in use, and generates executive-ready reports on demand.[8]

Censys Platform has API endpoints for integrating Platform functionality with a customer tech stack. Censys Platform uses a language called Censys Query Language. Censys Platform includes a web property dataset covering name-based assets on the internet, including websites, APIs and web-based applications. Collections let users track and monitor the results of a Censys query over time. The Adversary Investigation module is an add-on to the Censys Platform for organizations to detect, analyze and track threat infrastructure. Censys offers CensEye for automated pivoting jobs that find assets related to an IP, web property or certificate. Censys offers the cencli command line tool for running search queries, looking up assets and performing aggregations.[4][9][17][18][19][20]

Censys Platform data can enrich IPs, web properties and certificates in Google SecOps. Censys has an Attack Surface Management (ASM) integration with Google SecOps. Censys integrates natively with many SIEM, SOAR, TIP and other security tools. API access is included across all Censys tiers.[19]

Censys Credits power searches, lookups and other actions within the Censys Platform. Censys sets Starter plans to begin at 500 credits, and Enterprise customers use credits only for API usage. Censys Platform access is organised in Censys Free, Censys Starter, Censys Search and Censys Core tiers. Censys describes a plan for threat hunting and CTI teams looking to hunt, track and engineer detections for adversary campaigns and infrastructure. Censys describes a further plan for enterprises that want to use Censys data across alert triage, IR, threat intel and detection engineering. Censys offers Single Sign-On through a SAML-based integration to Enterprise and Government users. Censys offers purpose-built internet intelligence with specialized datasets for government specific investigations and exposure management requirements.[20]

Censys created fast Internet scanning at the University of Michigan and released the ZMap open source scanner. Censys introduced Censys Search and data downloads, initially scanning 16 popular Internet protocols. Censys evolved from a research project into a free-standing company. Censys architected a new scan engine with proprietary scanning technology. Censys goes to market in Nordics, France, Australia, Singapore, Japan and more. Censys says it empowers private and public sector security teams.[4][5][8][9][10][11][16]

Censys on the record

Sources

Censys full record

  1. [1]Censys introduces the ground truth for internet intelligence the censys internet map 301938734Censys via PR Newswire · prnewswire.com · published September 26, 2023 · Tier A
  2. [2]CareersCensys · censys.com · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]Censys | The Authority for Internet Intelligence and InsightsCensys · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Platform API Transition GuideCensys · published October 5, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]SAML AuthenticationCensys · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Censys Attack Surface Management Reviews & Product Details - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier C
  7. [7]Censys Search - CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Censys | Attack Surface Management | Internet VisibilityCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Adversary Investigation - CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Critical Infrastructure Monitoring - CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Trusted by Global Leaders for VisibilityCensys · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Censys Expands Into Security Operations with Internet Intelligence-Powered WorkflowsCensys · published June 18, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Censys Delivers Record First Half 2026 Growth as AI Driven Demand for Internet Intelligence AcceleratesCensys · published July 22, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Censys Transforms Global Channel Program to Accelerate Partner-Led GrowthCensys · published September 22, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Censys Reviews, Ratings & Features 2026 | Gartner Peer InsightsGartner Peer Insights · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier C
  16. [16]Censys | External Exposure Management & Attack Surface MappingCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Platform API Transition GuideCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Platform FAQsCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Google SecOps SOAR IntegrationCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  20. [20]Platform CLI ToolCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  21. [21]Pricing | CensysCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  22. [22]Censys Built by Cybersecurity Experts for Real-Time Threat IntelligenceCensys · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  23. [23]Censys Unveils Censys ARC, Formalizing Its Global Internet Threat Research TeamCensys · published March 10, 2026 · Tier A
  24. [24]Censys Powers SOC Modernization with Real-Time Internet Context and Risk ScoringCensys · published April 9, 2026 · Tier A
  25. [25]Censys Expands Its Internet Map to Include DNS IntelligenceCensys · published July 8, 2026 · Tier A
  26. [26]Censys Expands Into Security Operations with Internet Intelligence-Powered WorkflowsCensys · published June 18, 2026 · Tier A

NCC Group full record

  1. [1]nccgroup.comNCC Group · nccgroup.com · undated page, accessed November 4, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Case Study: Digital Forensics for Tulane University | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  3. [3]NCC Group | Leading Cyber Security & Managed ServicesNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Reflections from the 2025 Auto-ISAC Cybersecurity Summit | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Penetration Testing Services | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Managed Security Services | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Cloud & Digital Transformation Security Solutions | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Proactive Security | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Operational Technology (OT) Security | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Digital Identity Solutions | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Supply Chain & Third-Party Cyber Risk | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Case Study: Cloud Migration for Professional Services | NCC GroupNCC Group · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]NCC Group Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & FeaturesG2 · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier C

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