aws_public_ips vs Criminal IP Security Scanning Service: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

aws_public_ips

Security teams managing sprawling AWS environments need aws_public_ips to find what they've actually exposed across EC2, CloudFront, ELB, RDS, and other services in minutes, not weeks of manual inventory work. The tool's 642 GitHub stars reflect its adoption among practitioners who value speed and specificity over UI polish. Skip this if your organization already has a mature CSPM feeding real-time asset data into your EASM platform; aws_public_ips shines as a quick audit tool or gap-filler, not as a continuous monitoring layer.

Criminal IP Security Scanning Service

SMBs and mid-market teams without dedicated threat intelligence staff should start here for external asset discovery; Criminal IP Security Scanning Service finds internet-connected devices and services you actually own but don't know about, which is the blocking problem most organizations face before they can assess risk. The service covers ID.AM and ID.RA in NIST CSF 2.0, meaning it handles asset identification and feeds vulnerability context without requiring you to maintain your own reconnaissance infrastructure. Skip this if you need continuous monitoring that automatically tracks drift across thousands of assets; Criminal IP is better as a periodic audit tool than a persistent watcher.