This latest version of ShieldPRO is the beginning of a big change for the Shield Security plugin.
The are many areas of improvements, with huge developments under-the-hood. We’ll cover all of these in this release article and point to the direction we’re heading for the future of Shield.
#1 The Future Of Shield Security: Security Rules Engine
We’ve made a big shift in the fundamental approach we now take in handling requests sent to a WordPress site.
There’s a lot to cover, but we start with an introduction to Shield’s Security Rules Engine here.
We’ll have more details on the Rules Engine as it develops over the next few months.
#2 All-New Security Overview
Shield Security is huge – we cover a lot of ground and it can often feel that certain security features are buried deep within the plugin and are difficult to access.
Finding a way to make all aspects of the Shield plugin easily accessible has been a challenge. Each time we add another feature, it gets a little harder.
However, with ShieldPRO 15, we feel we’ve taken a huge step forward. We’ve managed to find an approach that provides a lot of information in clear format. It offers direct, instant access to almost every aspect of the entire Shield plugin.
Not only that, it offers a new angle to help you achieve optimal WordPress security by providing a clear target for each security are – “100% coverage”.
We’ve broken up the plugin into 7 key areas and gathered configuration options and conditions of the site under each one. We give each component a weighted score and calculate an overall percentage. You can see your score within each area and click “Analysis” to get a clear breakdown of what constitutes that score.
This is our first iteration of this dashboard and I’m sure you may have suggestions to help improve this. Please leave us your thoughts in the comments below!
#3 All-New Dashboard Widget
Similar to the Security Overview we wanted to offer some visibility to the workings of the Shield plugin right on the WordPress Dashboard, using the built-in widget area.
We did have a widget, but to be fair, it was absolutely terrible. So we scrapped it and went right back to the drawing board.
Currently it shows your
- security overview progress
- recently blocked IPs
- recent offending IPs
- recent user sessions
- jump links to key plugin areas.
#4 Improved Visitor IP Source Detection
Grabbing the correct IP address for each visitor is arguably the most critical component of any security plugin. Without the correct IP for the visitor, can’t distinguish between visitors and reliably block bad bots.
We’ve built a Javascript utility which will determine your best visitor IP source. This should, hopefully, solve this problem of everyone going forward, even if your host is badly configured (there are many such hosts!).
#5 Improved Plugin Navigation
All of our long-time customers will know that UI/UX design isn’t our forté, but we hope you’ll agree we’re improving with each release. This release brings further enhancements in this area and we hope you’ll appreciate the new dynamic page loading and smoother navigation.
#6 Massive Performance Optimisations
As part of our new approach to security with the Security Rules Engine, we’ve taken the opportunity to rip out legacy code and optimise many other areas. We’ve eliminated unnecessary MySQL queries and redesigned core components to be more efficient with how they store data.
We hope you’ll feel the difference as you use the plugin.
#7 New Template-Based Block Pages
When triggering the Shield defenses, Shield now provides a much more visitor-friendly block page that outlines exactly what’s happened. It’ll provide details of why the block occurred and what the visitor can do about it.
When an IP is blocked, and depending on your settings, a visitor can automatically unblock their IP address. We’ve improved the user experience here and everything should feel a lot smoother and user-friendly.
Many More Enhancements and Changes
This is a big release and if you want to discover everything that’s changed, we always recommend taking a closer look at our Shield Release Changelog.
Comments, Feedback and Suggestions
A lot of work has gone into this release that will, we hope, improve security for all users by making it much easier to see what’s going on and what areas need improved. The Security Rules Engine is one of our most exciting developments to-date and we can hardly wait to get the first iteration into your hands and start further development on it.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback so please do feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below.
