TechIDManager PAMCast

Next PAMCast is July 21st

We will be live talking about:

1. TechIDLogin – EntraID joined machine login
2. TechIDElevate release
3. SOC 2 Audit Done!

Register Here

June 16th PAMCast

1. Major new feature → TechIDElevate TechIDElevate is continuing through internal testing and polish. The team has been refining branding, documentation, command line arguments, and the portal experience before making it available more broadly. TechIDElevate will bring simple UAC elevation management into TechIDManager, helping MSPs remove local admin rights from end users while giving technicians a fast, controlled way to approve elevation requests when needed.
2. SOC 2 Audit progress   We are getting very close to completing our first SOC 2 Type 1 report. The draft report has been reviewed, comments have been sent back, and we expect the final report soon. Partners interested in receiving the report can email support@techidmanager.com. Once the report is finalized and the proper NDA is in place, we will be able to share it.
3. We hired a new developer   We also brought on a new developer this month. The hiring process was… interesting. Between AI-generated applications, digital twins, and a wide range of candidates, the job market continues to be a mess. The good news is that we found someone who is already contributing and helping with polish work on TechIDElevate. We expect this to help us move faster on upcoming features.
4. Polish on TechIDElevate   A large part of this month was spent polishing TechIDElevate. It has gone through several rounds of internal testing, and we’ve made improvements based on what we found. This work includes the portal interface, branding, documentation, command line arguments, and the overall approval workflow.
5. TechIDAgent.EntraID Base/Link 6.614 & 6.626 TechIDAgent.EntraID Base/Link 6.614 addressed issues related to delayed account enabling and occasional incorrect passwords on Entra ID accounts. This came down to timing and concurrency issues with Entra ID, where Microsoft Graph could report that an update had completed before the account was truly ready. We added mitigations to make JIT account enabling and credential setting more reliable. TechIDAgent.EntraID Base/Link 6.626 addressed an issue caused by Azure CLI 2.87.0 breaking several Azure functions used during base installation and updates. Some of those Azure CLI calls have been changed to Graph REST calls to work around the issue. If you are using Entra ID with TechIDManager, we recommend updating to the latest version.
6. TechIDClient.Windows 6.582 TechIDClient.Windows received an update related to larger environments and the Managed tab. This release addresses a possible race condition that could happen when working with a large number of entries, especially if an entry updated during a refresh.
7. TechIDHost/TechIDPortal 6.568 TechIDHost and TechIDPortal received a small update for an edge case where some co-managed or limited-access technicians could see more leaves in the left-side tree than they should. No credentials were exposed incorrectly, but the tree view could show leaves that should no longer appear. That has been corrected.
   

May 19th PAMCast

1. SOC 2 Audit Progress SOC 2 has continued to be a major focus across Ruffian Software this month. The audit process is moving forward, and we expect the SOC 2 Type I report to be completed before the next PAMCast.   Once the report is available, existing partners who need a copy will be able to request it, sign an NDA, and receive the report for their internal compliance, vendor review, or customer requirements.
2. We’re Hiring a Software Developer Ruffian Software is growing, and we are currently looking to hire a software developer. If you know a software developer who may be a good fit, please send them to the careers section of our website or connect them with us directly.
3. Shared Admin Accounts in the News This month, we also covered a recent story involving a fired contractor who deleted 96 federal databases after access was not removed quickly enough. At its core, this is another example of why shared admin accounts and manual access management create unnecessary risk. When access is not tied to unique users, and when offboarding depends on manual cleanup, organizations can be left exposed at exactly the wrong time. We published a blog post about this incident and how it connects to privileged access management, technician accountability, and the dangers of shared administrative access.
4. Introducing TechIDElevate The biggest announcement from this month’s PAMCast was the reveal of TechIDElevate   TechIDElevate is a new product from TechIDManager focused on UAC prompt control and elevation management for end users. When an end user attempts to run something that requires administrator rights, TechIDElevate can present a branded approval prompt, notify the appropriate technician, and allow that technician to approve or deny the request. This gives MSPs a way to manage elevation requests without handing out standing admin rights.
5. Recent Release of TechIDPortal / TechIDHost 6.541
   This release focused mainly on behind-the-scenes performance improvements.
   The updates included speed improvements for portal and host interactions, CPU processing improvements, rate limiting, and other performance-focused changes. These updates are especially important for larger-scale partners, even though many users may not notice the changes directly in day-to-day use.
   

April 21st PAMCast

1. SOC 2 Audit Started The SOC 2 audit has officially started. This has been a major milestone for TechIDManager and a major focus across the company. After a long stretch of preparation, the audit is now underway, and we expect to receive the SOC 2 Type I report in roughly 60 days.
2. Scale and Speed If there was one theme for this month, it was scale and speed. Several partners have now deployed TechIDManager at a larger scale than ever before. That growth has pushed us to optimize internal systems, improve performance, and reduce unnecessary network traffic across the platform. A large portion of development this month went into making TechIDManager faster, more efficient, and better equipped to handle larger environments
3. TechIDClient.Windows 6.487 This release includes significant speed improvements for larger environments. Technicians with access to more than 5,000 agents should notice faster loading, refreshing, and updating in the client. In smaller environments, the difference may be less noticeable, but these improvements are important for supporting TechIDManager at scale.
4. TechIDAgent.Windows 6.460 This was a quick follow-up release after 6.450. It fixed a bug that caused shared accounts to rotate too often, included additional cleanup, and reduced extra network chatter between the agent and TechIDHost. More improvements in this area are already in progress.
5. TechIDAgent.EntraID 6.475 This release added dynamic group ignoring and static group membership management, along with optional control over whether static group membership is managed by the agent. This gives partners more flexibility in how technician accounts are built in Entra ID and makes it easier to assign access through shared group structures across tenants.
6. TechIDPortal / TechIDHost 6.510 A large part of this release focused on speed improvements and page consistency. We made optimizations around triplets, access reporting, and agent-to-host interactions to improve performance in larger deployments. We also continued standardizing paging and filtering across the portal and host so the experience is more consistent across reports, lists, and management pages.
7. Self-hosted releases We also continued working on making TechIDHost and TechIDPortal releases more portable and easier to deliver for self-hosted partners. The technical groundwork is largely in place. The next step is finalizing the process around it so self-hosted partners can stay more closely aligned with production releases moving forward.

March 17th PAMCast

1. The Blox Season 21
2. TechIDHost ↔ TechIDAgent
   • Continued work on host and agent network interactions
   • Focused on improving scalability, performance, and reducing unnecessary network traffic
3. SOC 2 Compliance
   • Progress continues toward SOC 2 compliance
   • Audit paperwork is getting closer as the compliance effort moves forward
4. Self-hosted releases
   • Improvements were made to the self-hosted release process
   • These changes help make releases faster and more efficient for self-hosted partners
5. FortMesa (Better Together)
   • TechIDManager is now working alongside FortMesa to bridge a critical gap between cybersecurity planning and real-world enforcement.
   • FortMesa helps MSPs define and manage their security roadmap across frameworks like CIS, NIST, ISO 27001, and CMMC. TechIDManager ensures those controls are actually enforced—by eliminating shared admin accounts, automating least-privilege access, and producing verifiable audit logs.
   • Together, this allows you to:
     • 🔐 Eliminate shared admin accounts and reduce risk across all clients
     • ⚙️ Enforce individualized, just-in-time privileged access
     • 📊 Prove compliance with real audit data—not assumptions
     • 📈 Align your access controls with your broader security and compliance roadmap
   • This is the difference between planning for compliance and actually proving it.
6. TechIDClient.windows 6.417
   • Internal cleanup and minor bug fixes
   • Added logging improvements and a live log viewer in the About tab
   • Fixed a rare startup crash
7. TechIDAgent.windows 6.450
   • Major internal updates
   • Reduced network traffic for shared just-in-time accounts
   • Streamlined account request handling
   • Added new show option command-line functionality
   • Fixed several edge-case issues, including Server 2022 unlock behavior
8. TechIDPortal / TechIDHost 6.448
   • Agent interaction updates to lower network traffic
   • Better just-in-time account management
   • Internal cleanup
   • Included in the updated self-hosted release process
9. Performance improvements
   • Just-in-time enablement times improved this month
   • Additional speed improvements are still in progress
10. Entra ID Agent 6.147
    • Added technician group membership support for unique technician accounts
    • More improvements for dynamic groups and shared accounts are on the way
11. Portal and REST API improvements

February 17th PAMCast

1. Major new feature → TechID_____te
2. Working on SOC II Compliance
3. One Time Share expiration times (and from TechIDPortal)
4. Support for “.” in leaf names (use “\.”)
5. TechIDClient.windows
   -Bug with auto refresh for JIT fixed
   -Faster refresh for everything
6. TechIDClient.macOS
   -Tech Login Tile
   -TOPT saving bug
7. TechIDPortal/TechIDHost
   -Agent Delete/Block – Bringing them back
   -Report speed for very large reports (200+ MB)

January 20th PAMCast

1. Working on SOC II Compliance (Addressing GAP report items)
2. Major new feature in the works → TechID______e.
3. TechIDAgent.Windows 6.325
4. Tech Login Tiles
5. User Password Tile
6. TechIDClient.Windows 6.325
7. Login Request
8. Password Notes
9. Release Signing Change
10. Auto Update
11. TechIDPortal/TechIDHost 6.324
12. Agent Delete/Block – Bringing them back

December 16th PAMCast

1. Working on SOC II Compliance (Addressing GAP report items)
2. TechIDHost & TechIDPortal speed change
3. Paging for TechIDPortal
4. New TechIDAgent.Windows
5. Website moved (RuffianSoftware.com -> TechIDManager.com)
6. AutoUpdate for TechIDClient.Windows
7. Updated our Customer Support page

November 18th PAMCast

1. Working on SOC II Compliance (Addressing GAP report items)
2. Scaling work on TechIDHost
3. Major new feature in the works (We are really excited about this)
4. AutoUpdate for TechIDAgent.Windows (long time coming…)
5. Single URL download latest release (https://{host}/release/latest/…)

October 21st PAMCast

1. Working on SOC II Compliance (Addressing GAP report items)
2. Major new feature in the works…
3. AWS outage (US-EAST-1 only???)
4. TechIDAgent.EntraID Base/Link 6.147
5. AgentGroup command line documentation
6. TechIDHost/Portal 

September 23rd PAMCast

1. Working on SOC II Compliance (Initial report)
2. Major new feature in the works…
3. TechIDHost 6.134
4. LLM-AI support is available (self directed)
5. Redundant Domain Controller setup guide
6. TechIDClient.Windows 6.137 (TechIDClient.Get.exe)

August 19th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. New Logo
2. Refreshed website look
3. Working on SOC ll Compliance
4. Newsletter Signup
5. TechlDClient.macos update
6. TechIDClient -> VSA Live Connect settings fix
7. TechIDAgent.EntraID Base 6.0- Group Membership (pre-release

July 15th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Working on SOC ll Compliance
2. Newsletter Signup
3. Notices
4. TechlDAgent.macos 6.0 release
5. TechIDHost/TechIDPortal releases
6. TechIDClient.macOS 6.0 release
7. TechIDAgent.Windows new release

June 17th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Newsletter Signup
2. TechIDHost/TechIDPortal 6.0 updates
3. TechIDClient.macOS 6.0 release (keyboard mapping)
4. TechIDAgent.Windows 6.0 release
5. TechIDAgent.Secret 6.0 pre-release (Newsletter will have details)

May 20th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Website documentation face lift (with reconstruction)
2. New Head of Support 
3. Pricing change coming…don’t worry
4. TechIDHost/TechIDPortal 6.0 updates 
5. TechIDAgent.Windows 6.0 release
6. TechIDClient.Windows 6.0 release
7. TechIDClient.macOS 6.0 release is imminent 

April 15th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Renaming parts of TechIDManager for 6.0
2. TechIDHost/TechIDPortal 6.0 release 
3. TechIDPortal agent option settings
4. TechIDPortal has Tech specific options
5. TechIDClient.Windows 6.0 pre-release (Ribbon of icons)

March 18th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. CloudFlare – Password reuse article
2. Auto pay on QuickBooks
3. EntraID update to single subscription (base/link)
4. Force Password Rotation
5. One-Time-Share passwords
6. Wordlists for passwords
7. Central Host & Management Console changes

February 18th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Mobile app Android and iPhone (update to .net 8.0, done and in internal testing)
2. Update Agents Service (done and in internal testing)
3. DomainService updates

January 21st PAMCast

We discussed:

1. New REST Api example (Tech Status change)
2. macOS TechClient Update (in TestFlight right now)
3. Azure subscription update to single/cloud (pre-release right now)
4. Azure GCC/GCC-High support

December 17th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. New mobile app coming soon (Android and iPhone)
2. Update Agents Service (so close…)
3. macOS TechClient update

November 19th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. New Documentation
2. New server releases
3. Branding
4. Azure subscription update to manage your Azure usage under one subscription to consolidate billing.
5. MFA resets for techs

October 15th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. New mobile app coming soon (Android and iPhone)
2. Update Agents Service (so close…)
3. Azure subscription update to single/cloud

September 19th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. New mobile app coming soon (Android and iPhone)
2. Update Agents Service (so close…)
3. Switching Credit Card processor
4. Windows Credential provider (Other User Tile)
5. TechClient 5.210
6. EntraID 5.216

August 20th PAMCast

We discussed:

1.  DomainService 5.191
2.  URL in documentation tools
3. EntraID Agent 5.201 (pre-release)
4. Name change AzureAD -> EntraID
5. .net 8.0
6. Isolated worker model

July 16th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Ruffian Software’s new security journey to SOC II compliance
2. The new Trust Center tab on our website
3. Ways to do PAM with TechIDManager
   • Allow/Deny Log On
   • Deployment Examples New
4. Features
   • API examples in C# using REST API
   • Hotfix for DomainService 5.117->5.144
   • URL in documentation tools (pre-release soon)

June 18th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. General release of Vault Passwords
2. Feature releases completed in the last 2 months
3. Upcoming features that are just around the corner

Next PAMCast is May 21st

We will be live from MSPGeekCon talking about:

1. Our Giveaway at MSPGeekCon
2. New features for Vault Passwords
3. Leaves, even though it’s not fall?
4. Background infrastructure changes

TECHNICAL Difficulties prevented this from happening. We will cover all the relevant information in the next PAMCast.

April 16th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Vault Passwords
2. TOTP for managed accounts
3. Management Console UI changes
4. Price changes (for new customers)
5. MSP GeekCon
6. Zomentum deal for partners

March 19th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Price change, and who it effects
2. 4.0 –> 5.0 transition for TechIDManager
3. Curtian vs. Cryptography
4. Preview of the TechIDManager Vault

February 20th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Group membership from details screen
2. TOTP in Mobile Client
3. Timezone changes for Management Console
4. AzureAD (EntraID updates)
5. Microsoft SSO for Management Console
6. Duplicate Username Improvements

January 16th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Treeification of credentials
2. Shared password vault
3. CMMC

December 19th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Defined PAM Account Options
2. Year (or more) in Review
3. Next Year Preview

November 21st PAMCast

We discussed:

1. multiple instances of an agent on a machine to do multiple things.
2. New features added in the last month.

October 17th PAMCast

We discussed:

1. Martin’s background
2. PAM- Have it your way!
3. Managed vs JIT
4. Product updates