Shodan MCP

Shodan-MCP is a specialized Model Context Protocol server that turns the Shodan Internet‑of‑Things search engine into an AI‑ready toolset. It solves a common pain point for security professionals: accessing Shodan’s vast, constantly updated dataset through a simple, language‑model friendly interface. By exposing Shodan’s API behind the MCP abstraction, developers and researchers can ask an AI assistant to perform complex queries—such as “find all IoT cameras in the UK with CVE‑2021‑1234”—and receive structured, actionable results without writing raw HTTP requests or handling authentication tokens manually.

The server offers a rich set of capabilities that mirror the most frequently used Shodan features, but packaged as discrete MCP tools. Search and discovery is first class: users can compose advanced queries with filters, obtain geographic and organizational breakdowns, or retrieve raw counts to gauge scope without consuming API credits. Host intelligence tools return full service listings, banner data, and port scans for any IP address, enabling rapid triage of newly discovered devices. Security research functions surface CVE‑specific data, including CVSS scores and EPSS exploitation likelihood, allowing an AI to rank targets by risk. Network mapping utilities provide DNS introspection, subdomain discovery, and reverse‑DNS resolution, giving a holistic view of an organization’s exposed infrastructure.

In practice, Shodan-MCP is invaluable in threat‑intelligence workflows. A security analyst can ask an AI to “scan the last 24 hours for exposed industrial control systems in Germany” and receive a structured table of hosts, services, and risk scores. During penetration testing, the assistant can “enumerate all open HTTP ports on 192.0.2.0/24 and fetch banners” to surface potential misconfigurations. Incident‑response teams might use it to “track all devices reporting a specific firmware version” and quickly map the attack surface. The MCP protocol ensures these tasks integrate seamlessly into existing AI assistants—whether on Claude Desktop, Cursor IDE, or custom tooling—by simply invoking the appropriate tool name and passing arguments in natural language.

What sets Shodan-MCP apart is its thoughtful mapping of complex Shodan queries to intuitive MCP actions. The server’s design minimizes friction: authentication is handled once via an environment variable, and each tool returns data in a consistent JSON schema that the AI can parse or transform on the fly. The result is a powerful, low‑overhead bridge between human intent and machine‑readable threat data, empowering developers to build smarter security workflows that leverage the full breadth of Shodan’s global device inventory.