062: Certificates
Implementation Effort: High
User Impact: Low to Medium
Overview
Certificates are a foundational building block for many modern device-access scenarios. Organizations commonly use them for Wi-Fi authentication, VPN authentication, trusted root distribution, device or user identity, and in some environments for application or browser-based authentication to internal resources. In Intune, the most common deployment patterns are trusted certificate profiles, PKCS certificate profiles, and SCEP certificate profiles.
A Zero Trust device design should use certificates where they solve a real trust problem, not simply because they existed in a legacy mobile-management design.
Implementation Guidance
- Start with the use case: Wi-Fi, VPN, client authentication, or line-of-business access. The use case drives whether you need trusted root certificates only, or full issued client certificates.
- Use trusted certificate profiles to deliver the root and intermediate certificates devices must trust.
- Use PKCS when devices should receive certificates from a connector-based model tied to your PKI design. Use SCEP when an enrollment flow through NDES or a similar pattern is appropriate.
- Define certificate subject-name format, renewal timing, key storage expectations, and whether certificates are user-based or device-based before building the policy.
- Test certificate deployment with the dependent service, such as Wi-Fi or VPN, not just with Intune status alone.
- Document connector ownership, PKI dependencies, certificate revocation handling, and renewal failure procedures.