Nearly 268,000 internet-facing AI systems identified globally, while around 134,000 hosts running industrial control systems remain exposed, highlighting growing challenges for cybersecurity teams.
The rapid deployment of artificial intelligence is expanding the internet-facing attack surface, with exposed AI infrastructure increasing 63% in just nine months, according to Censys’ 2026 State of the Internet Report. The research also identifies persistent industrial control system (ICS) exposures and uneven software patching, underscoring the difficulty organisations face in tracking and securing internet-connected assets.
The fifth annual report, produced by the Censys Advanced Research Collective (ARC), draws on historical and real-time data from the Censys Internet Map, which continuously monitors global internet infrastructure. Its findings highlight how emerging technologies and longstanding security weaknesses are reshaping the threat landscape.
Censys identified nearly 268,000 internet-facing AI systems. These include not only chatbots but also the underlying tools connecting AI applications to data, business systems and user accounts. Workflow automation platform n8n was the most widely exposed product, with nearly 114,000 hosts, followed by OpenClaw, a personal AI agent assistant, with approximately 54,000.
“Identifying and continuously monitoring Internet-facing systems is essential to realizing AI’s value without introducing unmanaged risk.” — Zakir Durumeric, Co-Founder and CEO, Censys
The United States accounted for 62,687 exposed AI systems, followed by China with 42,511 and Germany with 31,222. Together, the three countries represented just over half of the observed AI infrastructure.
For enterprises, the figures highlight a security challenge beyond the adoption of AI applications themselves. Supporting infrastructure and integrations can introduce additional internet-facing entry points, making asset discovery and continuous monitoring increasingly important as organisations deploy AI agents and automation tools.
The report also found approximately 134,000 internet-exposed hosts running ICS devices and services. North America accounted for around 38% of the observed global ICS exposure, followed by Europe at 32% and Asia at 25%. About 70% of these exposed hosts were consistently found on consumer and mobile networks, making ownership identification and remediation more difficult.
Threat infrastructure showed distinct geographic patterns. China hosted 36.6% of the malicious host-level infrastructure observed by Censys, including command-and-control systems and remote-access tooling, compared with 16.8% in the United States. However, the United States accounted for 45.5% of observed web-based threats, such as phishing and deceptive pages, while China represented 20.9%.
Software maintenance remains another concern. Across four products studied—Progress Telerik Report Server, Jenkins, Cleo MFT and Microsoft SharePoint Server—organisations were adopting newer versions, but the oldest releases remained largely unchanged during the research period. This persistence suggests that patching progress does not necessarily eliminate legacy exposure.
“The Internet is constantly changing, and understanding how it changes is critical to modern cybersecurity,” said Zakir Durumeric, Co-Founder and CEO of Censys. He emphasised the need to identify and continuously monitor internet-facing systems as AI introduces new layers of infrastructure.
The report reinforces the need for organisations to maintain an accurate, continuously updated view of their external attack surface. As AI adoption accelerates, security teams must account for newly deployed services alongside exposed industrial systems and ageing software that can remain vulnerable long after newer versions become available.
The Censys 2026 State of the Internet Report is available at censys.com/2026-state-of-the-internet-report.
