Certificate-Based Network Access Control for Small and Mid-Sized Networks

Brama Systems is a network security company based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, that sells network access control to small and mid-sized organizations. Its premise is that NAC has historically been priced and staffed for large enterprises, leaving smaller networks with no practical way to know which devices are attached to them at any moment. The company raised seed funding from TIIN Capital in 2022 to push the product further into the SME market.

The product follows the NAC/NAP model: a user or device must present a valid identity before it is granted a place on the network. Brama builds this on its own PKI engine, issuing certificates to users and devices and using those certificates as the basis for admission decisions. Devices that cannot authenticate are blocked or held away from production segments, and administrators get a running record of what is connected and what tried to connect.

The design follows zero trust principles, replacing implicit trust in anything physically plugged into the LAN with verification at every connection attempt. Segmentation and least-access policies limit lateral movement once a device is admitted. The emphasis throughout is on keeping deployment and daily administration light enough for teams with no dedicated network security specialist, which is the main axis on which it competes against enterprise NAC suites built for much larger environments.