The internet's open directories are often overlooked, yet they frequently serve as unsecured staging grounds for adversaries, exposing everything from malware to reconnaissance logs. In the past, identifying these hidden caches of malicious intent has been a manual, regex-heavy challenge. The Threat Hunting module in the Censys Platform solves this problem by providing contextual metadata about assets with open directories. This information can be explored in an intuitive interactive UI, raw data in the Platform web console, and retrieved via API.

Open directories that meet certain criteria are tagged as Suspicious Directory threats. The Suspicious Directory threat highlights assets that contain web-accessible directories containing security tools, penetration testing utilities, webshells, or other potentially malicious files. These directories often expose sensitive tools and scripts that could be used for unauthorized access or malicious activities. You can use this threat information to find hosts and web services with suspicious files before they are leveraged in attacks.

Learn more about open directory data in the Platform in the video below or in our docs.