WordPress Activity Logs need to be monitored vigilantly. They are akin to the CCTV cameras installed in your office building. These logs will provide you with a holistic picture regarding who is logging on to your site and what exactly are they doing after logging in. Just like you can’t leave the security of your office site unattended, you cannot do so with your Wordpress site’s security either. Hence, maintaining and monitoring your site’s activity logs is one of the most straightforward ways of keeping your site safe and secure.

It is extremely crucial that astute business professionals like you understand the importance of WordPress activity logs and invest your time as well as energy in monitoring them. If you think you are not well-equipped to do so, you can reach out to us for help. Our team of experts will assist you in the best possible manner!

What are WordPress activity logs?

To put it simply, WordPress activity logs are a record of activities and changes that have been happening on your WordPress site. They are recorded sequentially in chronological order. The recent activity is shown first, and the older activity is shown later on.

WordPress activity logs usually display:

• Who logged in to your site
• From where did the person logged into your site
• At what time did the person logged into your site
• Published posts or pages
• Installation of a plugin
• Activation of a plugin
• Updating a plugin
• Deleting a plugin
• Modification of a file
• And many more similar details

These details might seem insignificant to you right now, but once your WordPress website becomes live, you will realize the importance of these apparently small details.

Why are WordPress activity logs important?

WordPress activity logs are important because:

• They help in keeping track of all WordPress users’ activity

When a WordPress website has multiple users and managers, conflict is bound to happen. A change made by one user may be overwritten by another user. This will create a mess. There is no way to figure out who made what changes. You cannot even expect the managers to confess their mistakes. However, if you maintain WordPress activity logs, then this will all become quite easy. The mess will be sorted out, and you will have a clear record of who made what changes.

We do realise that being a business owner, you do not have that much time to dedicate to monitoring your WordPress users’ activity. Therefore, for your ease, you can hand over this task to us, and we will do complete justice to this work.

That is a guarantee!

• They make WordPress troubleshooting easy

WordPress is an extremely reliable CMS. Still, things can go wrong with your WordPress website. It can crash any time. Technological glitches mostly come without warning. To say the least, they are usually unexpected. That is why it is nearly impossible to troubleshoot such technical glitches if there isn’t any record in your hand. However, if you have the whole record of your site, troubleshooting the issue is quite easy. You can easily scroll down your WordPress activity log to see what went wrong and fix it up.

• They help in preventing hacking attacks

Hackers play on your website’s vulnerability. They skimp through your website to find out what makes it vulnerable to hacking attacks. Then the identified vulnerabilities are used to launch an attack. If you ever notice that a lot of failed login attempts have been made on your business website, consider it as a signal of a possible hacking attack.Only an updated and well-maintained activity log can provide you such comprehensive details.

What should you be monitoring in WordPress activity logs?

The 7 most important things to monitor in WordPress activity logs are:

• Changes made on your website

One of the earliest signs of a security breach are changes that have been made on your site. It is essential that you instantly get notified if any file or important data of your website has been altered. You should particularly get updated about things such as:

• Changes to your site’s DNS
• Security changes
• Changes in availability
• Changes in website settings
• Adding or deleting sites
• Adding or deleting users from the site

Apart from these, there are other things as well that can mess up your website’s security if altered. However, these things are the most important. That is why it is crucial that you keep an eye on these particular aspects of your WordPress site. But we also understand that running a business would not leave enough time for you to monitor them yourself. You can leave this to our experts because this is our business.

• Changes made to your blogs

It is very likely that you make a few changes to your blogs after they have been published. You might have forgotten some details or might feel the need to delete a few sentences that are not relevant. It is completely okay to so. However, what makes this tricky is that it becomes difficult to differentiate between the changes that were legitimately made and the changes that were fraudulently made. For that, you need to keep a track of

• Post and page creation
• Post and page publishing

This will help you in pinpointing malicious activity on your blogs. Once you get to identify such activity, it becomes easier to protect your site.

• Changes in WordPress plugins

WordPress is filled with plugins. There are enormous options for you to choose from. Sometimes people end up installing way more plugins on their site than are required.

This can result in people forgetting that they already have some old plugins installed on their website. It is extremely important to keep an eye on the activity of these plugins. You should use your activity log to monitor when:

• A file is being modified through a plugin editor
• A plugin is being installed
• A plugin is being activated
• A plugin is being deactivated
• A plugin is being updated
• A plugin is being deleted
• A plugin’s settings are being altered

Remember the golden rule regarding WordPress plugins: less is more! The more plugins you install, the more vulnerable your site becomes to security risks.

• Changes made in WordPress theme

You might not know, but it is possible to have multiple active themes on a single WordPress website. That is why it is as important to keep an eye on WordPress themes as it is to monitor WordPress plugins. You should ideally receive an email whenever

• A file is modified
• A theme is installed
• A theme is activated
• A theme is updated
• A theme is deleted

If you do not wish to edit your WordPress theme anytime soon, the smart thing to do is to disable edit access to your WordPress themes.

• Changes in the core features of WordPress

If your WordPress activity log ever shows that a change has been made in your WordPress core, immediately take an action. The instant action is warranted if you did not authorize this change yourself. Therefore you should activate alerts for:

• Updates to WordPress version
• Changes in directory permission

If either of the two things is changed, your website’s settings can get messed up easily.

To prevent this security breach from happening, it is in your website’s best interest to hand-over this task to our team of experts. We, at Nirmal, can help you in protecting the core of your WordPress in the best possible manner.

Get in touch with us and we will tell you how!

• User login activity

It is absolutely necessary to keep a check on the login activity of your website. If unauthorized people are accessing your website, it means that you need to tighten up your site’s security. You should have thorough knowledge about:

• Who is logging in your website?
• Can new users access your website easily?
• Should a particular user be logging in?
• Were the particular logins successful?
• Did some logins fail?
• Who installed a plugin?
• Who installed a theme?

WordPress, by default, allows multiple login attempts. This feature makes WordPress sites vulnerable to hacking attacks. In order to protect your WordPress site from such attacks, you can install a plugin that will limit the number of permitted login attempts. You can even use a Web Application Firewall (FAW).

• Changes in website security

Your website’s security should totally be in safe hands. If it is in safe hands, it means you can sleep peacefully at night. If it is not, your website is in danger and needs to be rescued as soon as possible. Therefore, if you ever notice that your website’s security settings are being changed, take swift action and review the following things:

• Who logged in your website?
• Did the login succeeded or failed?
• Were any of the security settings changed?
• Was there any impact on the site because of security changes?

You should try your best to minimize the risk of an unauthorized person accessing your WordPress security plugin. CAPTCHAs can help you in doing so.

Conclusion

We hope that the information provided above has convinced you about the importance of maintaining WordPress activity logs.

If you have been fully convinced, you can reach out to us for assistance. Our experts will take care of this tedious task for your business website and you can sleep peacefully. We have been efficiently maintaining the activity logs of our clients’ websites for years now. This vast experience has made our team a pro at this task. Hence, we promise to deliver you nothing less than THE BEST!!!

Are you doubtful about this claim? If yes, leave a comment below and our team representative will get in touch with you. Our customers’ satisfaction is our utmost priority. Hence, we are ready to go to any extent to meet the expectations of our clients!

The post Why Are WordPress Activity Logs Important And What Should You Be Monitoring In Them? appeared first on WP Creative.