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Censys Authentication Guide

How to authenticate Censys for use with Tines

Daniel Stoeski avatar
Written by Daniel Stoeski
Updated over a year ago

Censys is a platform that helps information security practitioners discover, monitor, and analyze devices that are accessible from the Internet.

Enterprises use Censys to understand their network attack surfaces. CERTs and security researchers use it to discover new threats and assess their global impact. Censys was founded by computer scientists at the University of Michigan, and the data collected has been used in hundreds of scientific papers by researchers worldwide.

First, get a Censys API key

  1. Login to your Censys account at https://censys.io/login

  2. Click on the user menu and select "My Account"


  3. Click on the API tab and copy your "API ID" and "Secret" to a text editor

Lastly, create a Censys resource and credential in Tines

  1. Login to your Tines tenant

  2. Navigate to the team that will be using the API and click "Resource"

  3. Click "+ New Resource"

  4. Input the values for the Censys resource

    • Name: Censys API ID

    • Description: Optional

    • Builder: Your API ID

  5. Optional

    • Access: What other teams can also use the resource

  6. Click "Save resource"

  7. Navigate to the team that will be using the API and click "Credential"

  8. Click "+ New Credential" and select "Text"

  9. Input the values for the Censys credential

    1. Name: Censys

    2. Description: Optional

    3. Value: Your Secret

  10. Optional

    1. Domains: Ensure this credential can only be used when making HTTP requests to specific domains.

    2. Access: What other teams can also use the API

  11. Click "Save"

For more on creating credentials in Tines, click here.

You can find a selection of Censys stories in the story library

Using the credential in an action

Here is an example Censys action you can copy and paste onto your storyboard in Tines:

{"standardLibVersion":"36","actionRuntimeVersion":"4","agents":[{"disabled":false,"name":"Search for IP in Censys","description":"Returns host information for the specified IP address","options":"{\"url\":\"https://search.censys.io/api/v2/hosts/<<ip_address>>\",\"method\":\"get\",\"content_type\":\"json\",\"basic_auth\":[\"<<RESOURCE.censys_api_id>>\",\"<<CREDENTIAL.censys>>\"]}","position":{"x":1080,"y":4440},"type":"httpRequest","timeSavedUnit":"minutes","timeSavedValue":0,"monitorAllEvents":false,"monitorFailures":false,"monitorNoEventsEmitted":null,"recordType":null,"recordWriters":[],"form":null,"cardIconName":"httpRequest","createdFromTemplateGuid":"37a200c25896125243268646d02f8dab9ed013982d19e734fbd96cfced31d9e9","createdFromTemplateVersion":1,"originStoryIdentifier":"cloud:aa47f8215c6f30a0dcdb2a36a9f4168e:d4c15df0f02ba4789095426607003199"}],"links":[],"diagramNotes":[]}
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