Embodiments of a device and method are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method for network device authentication involves using Remote Procedure Call (RPC) proxies of network devices of a network at a customer site, accessing identity certificates from Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) of the network devices, and using the RPC proxies, sequentially establishing Transport Layer Security (TLS) connections between the network devices to perform mutual authentication between the network devices based on the identity certificates.