A device includes a microcontroller, memory including secure memory to store a private key, a set of registers, and an authentication engine. The set of registers includes a write mailbox register and a read mailbox register, and message data is to be written to the write mailbox register by a host system. The message data includes at least a portion of a challenge request, and the challenge request includes a challenge by the host system to authenticity of the device. The authentication engine generates a response to the challenge, where the response includes data to identify attributes of the device and a signature generated using the private key. The authentication engine causes at least a portion of the response to be written to the read mailbox register to be read by the host system.