Device Health Attestation

Cyber threats do not knock; they break in.

As enterprises embrace mobility and flexibility, attackers evolve just as fast, from rogue apps to tampered firmware, modern threats exploit every opportunity. To take meaningful preventative action, organizations need more than just awareness—they need verification.

Employee devices are now the weakest link in your security strategy. With bring your own device (BYOD) policies expanding the device landscape, it is no longer enough to secure your network—you must also trust every device that connects to it.

Device Health Attestation enables organizations to verify device integrity in real time, reducing the risk of breaches before they happen.

What is Device Health Attestation?

Device Health Attestation is a security check that allows IT admins to verify a device’s integrity before it accesses corporate systems. It ensures that the hardware and software are in a secure, uncompromised state, protecting corporate resources before a connection is made.

Device Health Attestation works by assessing key security indicators such as boot integrity, root status, and attestation key validation. If a device passes these checks, it is considered secure and allowed access. If not, it can be flagged or denied entry, helping organizations block unauthorized or compromised devices from their networks.

Without proper safeguards, attackers can exploit device-level vulnerabilities to:

Gain unauthorized control over device firmware and system files
Deploy malware to steal passwords, hijack identities, and exfiltrate data
Infiltrate enterprise infrastructure and disrupt operations

Preventing compromised devices at the door is more effective and cost-efficient than dealing with a breach after the fact. Research shows that preventative cybersecurity measures (like Device Health Attestation) can cut workplace cyberattack incidents by 95% and save organizations up to $1.5 million USD annually (Sukri et al., 2023, p. 121).

With real-time verification and device-level controls, solutions like Device Health Attestation help organizations reduce risks before they escalate, strengthening enterprise security and minimizing financial impact.

How does Device Health Attestation work?

Device Health Attestation functions as a multi-step security measure. This process helps organizations maintain a zero-trust security model, ensuring that only healthy, compliant devices can access critical business applications.

Device Health Attestation locks down security with four key steps:

Boot integrity check: Ensures that the device starts up in a verified, uncompromised state.
Software integrity verification: Confirms that OS security settings, encryption policies, and lock screen configurations align with enterprise security threats.
Attestation request and procession: The device sends attestation data to a verification server, where it is analyzed for anomalies or security threats.
Access verdict: Based on the attestation results, the system either grants access to corporate resources or flags the device for further review or remediation.

What is Knox Device Health Attestation?

Knox Device Health Attestation takes device health a step further by leveraging hardware-backed attestation for enhanced security.

Unlike software-only solutions, which can be bypassed, Knox Device Health Attestation relies on the device’s unique cryptographic keys and trusted environment to provide tamper-proof verification.

This ensures that security data cannot be manipulated or faked, offering a more reliable attestation process against replay attacks and device ID falsification.

Diagram of the six steps for Knox Device Health Attestation: scan device, bind ID, to health data, sign data, send to server, validate signature, and map device ID to verdict.

Learn how Knox Device Health Attestation works in enterprise systems

The benefits of Knox Device Health Attestation

Knox Device Health Attestation provides a comprehensive security framework that strengthens device integrity across enterprises. It enhances security in BYOD environments by ensuring that personal devices comply with corporate security standards before accessing company resources.

For IT admins, this means gaining full confidence that employees accessing sensitive data have not been compromised—helping to ensure compliance without disrupting workflows.

Maximize security and compliance with Knox Device Health Attestation:

Hardware-based verification: Uses dedicated security hardware—unlike other cloud-based solutions—to detect compromised devices, even without a network connection.
Device-unique hardware key (DUHK): Each device has its own Knox Device Health Attestation Key (SAK), which binds attestation data to a hardware-generated cryptographic key to prevent software-level tampering.
Knox Vault integration: Stores sensitive data in an isolated, tamper-resistant environment that protects against both hardware and software attacks.
Knox Warranty Bit: Permanently records unauthorized configurations, blocking compromised devices from re-entering secure environments.

For IT admins, keeping track of device security at scale is often complex. Knox Device Health Attestation simplifies this by providing granular visibility into each device’s health status, linking security data to unique identifiers like IMEI numbers.

This enables IT teams to identify trends, uncover vulnerabilities early, and take proactive action—without the need for manual correlation between devices and attestation results.

Manage your device health with Knox Device Health Attestation

Cyber threats never take a day off, so why should your security? Protecting sensitive data and ensuring only trusted devices to access your corporate network isn’t just a best practice—it’s essential security.

Knox Device Health Attestation stands out from other solutions by providing IT teams with:

✔ Real-time security insights to detect risks faster
✔ Streamlined compliance with security policies
✔ Clear device health trend reports—no more manual tracking

Proactive protection starts here! Explore our Knox Suite plans today. With Knox Device Health Attestation, IT teams can spend less time chasing threats and start preventing them.

References:

Sukri, M. M. N. M., Padli, N. A. F., Roslan, S. S., & Mat Nawi, N. A. M. (2023). Cyber-attacks and cyber security: Emerging trends and recent developments. In Proceedings of the 1st Global Symposium on Information and Social Sciences (GSISS) 2023 (pp. 117-121). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8201436

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 International License.