A tool with admin rights should earn your trust
An inventory tool knows your whole network and holds the keys to it. Census is built so that this information stays on your network, under your control.
Nothing leaves your network
Inventory, credentials and settings are stored on your server and are never sent to us or any cloud service. License activation is offline. The only outbound traffic is to the devices you scan, your directory and mail servers, services you set up yourself (such as warranty lookups or Let's Encrypt), and downloads of public data: vulnerability feeds (can be turned off and uploaded by hand), end-of-life dates (can be turned off; a built-in copy is used), and a small daily version file from steward-it.com that tells you when an update is out. That check sends nothing about your server and can be turned off.
Credentials locked down
WinRM, SSH, SNMP, LDAP and email secrets are encrypted with AES-256-GCM, with the key kept outside the database. Optionally, the key can be bound to the server's TPM (Windows DPAPI or Linux systemd-creds). A stolen database backup alone reveals no passwords.
Trusted agent traffic
Agents talk to the server over HTTPS with certificate pinning. Each agent registers its own key and signs every request, so the shared enrollment key can only add new agents, never pose as existing ones, and a computer stays with the agent that reports it.
Who can do what
Administrator, Viewer and custom roles, including roles limited to some sites or groups. Two-step sign-in with authenticator apps, Active Directory and Windows (Kerberos) sign-in, sign-in throttling and 12-hour sessions.
Everything is recorded
An audit log of sign-ins and setting changes. Deployments, scripts, console commands and uninstalls are limited to permitted roles and written to each asset's history.
Remote sites, hardened
Remote scanners connect out, sign every request, and receive only the credentials you allow, encrypted per scanner with X25519 + ML-KEM-768 post-quantum hybrid encryption, and only for the duration of a scan.
Small, quiet and accountable
The Census agent is a single 7 MB program for Windows, Linux and macOS. It reports hardware, the operating system, network settings, installed software, services, users and groups, security status, certificates and the settings used by the compliance checks, plus any registry values, files and folders your administrators choose to collect.
- It connects out to your server only. No inbound ports are needed on the computer.
- Each agent has its own key and can be revoked from the console at any time.
- Uninstall it from Programs and Features, the command line, or remotely from the Agents page.
More safeguards
- HTTPS (TLS 1.2+) for the web console, with free Let's Encrypt certificates built in
- bcrypt password hashes, CSRF and clickjacking protection, strict Content Security Policy
- Custom SQL reports run read-only and can't read password, session or settings tables
- SSH host keys are trusted on first use, so a changed key stops the scan instead of sending your password
- Deployment files use one-time links and are verified by SHA-256 on the target
- Daily backups, optionally encrypted with AES-256
- A single self-contained program with no runtime dependencies to patch separately
Reporting a security issue
If you believe you've found a security vulnerability in Census, please email support@steward-it.com with the subject "Security report" and the details. Please don't post it publicly until we've had a chance to fix it. We'll acknowledge your report and keep you updated.
For full technical details, see Security & privacy in the documentation.