High-assurance identity for enterprise infrastructure

High-assurance device identity is the ability to cryptographically verify that an access request comes from a specific, trusted piece of hardware rather than from a copied credential or spoofed endpoint. Instead of relying on passwords, shared secrets, or self-reported identifiers, high-assurance identity uses hardware-backed keys and attestation to prove that a device is genuine, enrolled, and approved before granting access to sensitive resources.

Enforcing device identity is difficult because enterprises operate across multiple platforms, clouds, identity providers, and management tools, each with different enrollment mechanisms and trust models. Many legacy systems rely on portable credentials or passwords, which can be copied or reused, and most environments lack a unified control plane that can consistently issue, rotate, and revoke certificates across Wi-Fi, VPN, SaaS, SSH, and cloud APIs.

Smallstep centralizes certificate issuance, hardware attestation, and policy enforcement into a unified platform that works across macOS, Windows, Linux, ChromeOS, and mobile devices. It uses cryptographically attested hardware identifiers and short-lived certificates to ensure that only approved devices can enroll for credentials and access enterprise resources, reducing reliance on static secrets and manual PKI management.

ACME is a standardized certificate enrollment protocol that automates certificate issuance and renewal without manual intervention. Smallstep extends ACME with device attestation so that devices must prove their hardware identity before receiving credentials, allowing organizations to replace insecure legacy enrollment methods like static SCEP with automated, cryptographically verified certificate workflows.

Zero trust for devices means that access is never granted based solely on network location or assumed trust. Smallstep enforces this model by requiring hardware-backed certificates for authentication, validating device identity at every access request, and integrating with identity providers and policy engines so that both user and device identity must meet defined security requirements before access is granted.

Yes, Smallstep integrates with major MDM platforms such as Jamf, Intune, and Workspace ONE, as well as identity providers like Okta, Entra ID, and Google Workspace. These integrations allow organizations to sync device inventories, automate enrollment, and enforce device trust policies without replacing their existing ecosystem, while strengthening it with hardware-backed certificate authentication.

Smallstep enables certificate-based authentication for Wi-Fi using 802.1X and EAP-TLS and for VPN using mutual TLS, ensuring that only devices with valid, hardware-bound certificates can connect. Because certificates are short-lived and non-exportable, this approach eliminates credential theft risks associated with passwords or shared secrets and simplifies revocation when devices fall out of compliance.

When a device is removed from inventory or fails posture checks, Smallstep can revoke its certificates and prevent it from enrolling for new ones. Since access depends on valid, hardware-bound credentials, the device immediately loses the ability to authenticate to protected resources, helping organizations maintain continuous enforcement without manual cleanup of distributed keys.

Smallstep automates certificate issuance, renewal, revocation, and monitoring through a centralized control plane and API. It supports distributed local certificate authorities with shared configuration and policy enforcement, allowing enterprises to scale securely across regions and environments while maintaining consistent reporting, observability, and compliance controls.

Traditional enterprise PKI solutions often rely on legacy enrollment protocols, long-lived certificates, and complex manual configuration that make enforcement inconsistent and operationally heavy. Smallstep builds on modern standards like ACME and hardware attestation to provide short-lived, automatically managed certificates that are bound to real devices, delivering stronger security guarantees and a simpler operational model for enterprise infrastructure.