Shodan
Search engine for internet-connected devices that shows the open ports, running services, and banners for a host or IP.
- Categories
- IP and Network OSINTDomain OSINT
- Price
- Freemium
- Setup
- Some setup
Shodan is a search engine for devices, not pages. It crawls the public internet on a regular cycle (the company says weekly) and indexes the banners that services return: open ports, software versions, certificates, and whatever else a host said out loud. You search by IP, hostname, product, country, or a filter string.
A free account can look around. Paid plans unlock more results, more filters, downloads, and the API. Shodan Monitor watches a network range and mails you when something new shows up. Browser extensions give a short report on the host behind a website.
What it is for
“What is this IP actually running.” “How many of this product are on the internet.” “Did this company’s office network put a database on 0.0.0.0.” Those are the questions. It is also how people find exposed cameras and forgotten services that should never have been public.
It is not a people-search tool. An IP in a leak can land you here. A name will not.
How I use it next to Censys
I use both. Shodan is the one I reach for when I want a banner and a familiar filter language. Censys is the one I reach for when I want certificate history and a more structured host record. Neither replaces the other, and neither is a Gem on this site, because the Gems are identity and breach tools. Shodan is still one of the first things I would install on an analyst laptop.
Do not scan from your own box what you can look up here. The point of the index is that the crawl already happened.
