The internet’s attack surface moves at very different speeds
Censys says publicly exposed AI software grew 63% in nine months, led by vulnerable n8n hosts.
Censys measured publicly exposed AI-related software rising from 164,088 IP addresses in October 2025 to 267,915 in July 2026, a 63% increase across 44 products. n8n accounts for 113,926 hosts, and 76.1% of those reporting a version fall in the affected range of at least one vulnerability scored 9.0 or higher. Exposed industrial-control hosts rose only about 4% to roughly 134,000, while Cleo file-transfer hosts moved faster after critical flaws entered CISA’s exploited-vulnerability catalog and the Cl0p ransomware gang claimed attacks.
- Exposed AI software grew 63% to 267,915 addresses across 44 products.
- n8n accounts for 113,926 hosts; 76.1% of versioned ones match a CVSS 9.0+ range.
- OpenClaw exposure jumped from two panels to 85,478 in about three months.
- Exposed ICS hosts rose about 4% to roughly 134,000, many on cellular networks.
- China hosted 36.5% of host-based threat infrastructure; the U.S. led phishing hosting.
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Censys found that AI-related software exposed to the public internet grew 63% in nine months, from 164,088 IP addresses in October 2025 to 267,915 in July 2026. Elsewhere in its scans, the internet-scanning company measured much slower movement. Exposed industrial control systems rose about 4% in two and a half years. The oldest versions of four widely deployed business products barely changed their share at all.
AI tools are the fast part
The growth spans 44 products. n8n, a workflow automation platform now used to connect AI agents to other services, accounts for 113,926 hosts. Of the n8n servers that report a version, 76.1% run a release inside the affected range of at least one vulnerability scored 9.0 or higher. Those servers store credentials for the services their workflows connect to.
OpenClaw, a self-hosted AI agent, shows how quickly this happens. Its first release with a control panel shipped January 5, 2026. Six days later, Censys saw two exposed panels. By April 7 there were 85,478.
The oldest versions stay online
Censys tracked Telerik Report Server, Jenkins, Cleo MFT and Microsoft SharePoint Server from January 2024 to May 2026. For all four products, the oldest version group changed its share by about one percentage point or less. These leftovers are likely abandoned instances that are unlikely to be upgraded.
How a product is maintained also decides when its hosts move. Exposed Jenkins hosts upgraded at 5% to 9% a month, with little change around vulnerability disclosures. Cleo MFT hosts sat at a median of 1.9% a month until two critical flaws were added to CISA’s catalog of actively exploited bugs and the Cl0p ransomware gang claimed attacks. By January 2025, 63% of returning Cleo hosts had moved to a newer version.
ICS owners are hard to find
Censys counted about 134,000 hosts running industrial control system (ICS) services in early 2026, up from about 129,000 in 2024. Roughly 70% sit on consumer and mobile networks, often behind cellular modems at remote sites. On those networks, registration records point to the carrier and not the operator.
Verizon’s cellular network alone hosts 10% of exposed ICS hosts and 27.5% of exposed human-machine interfaces, the screens operators use to run equipment. That makes these systems easy to discover and their owners hard to notify. More than 80% of ICS hosts also run an ordinary IT service such as HTTP or SSH, so an attacker may not need to understand the industrial protocol at all.
Threat infrastructure splits by type
Between October 2025 and June 2026, China hosted 36.5% of host-based threat infrastructure, such as command-and-control servers, against 16.8% in the U.S. For web-based threats like phishing pages, the order flips: the U.S. hosted 45.5% and China 20.9%.
