How To Setup The Shield Security Plugin To Run in Must-Use Mode
To prevent unwanted or accidental deactivation of the Shield Security plugin, it can be converted to an MU plugin.
To setup the Shield to run as an MU-plugin (to run in Must-Use (MU) Mode), you'll just need to go to the Dashboard section > Configuration > Plugin Defaults and turn on the "Run In MU Mode" option:
Important: WordPress must be at least version 5.6 to activate this option.
Once you do this, Shield will run in MU Mode and you'll be unable to deactivate the plugin from the WordPress dashboard while this setting is active.
This also means that, under your Plugins page > "Deactivate" option will be unavailable for the Shield plugin.
To turn off the MU Mode for Shield, you'll need to turn-off the option in the above detailed setting.
When you turn off this option, MU Mode will be disabled and you'll have the ability to deactivate the plugin if you need to.
Note: ShieldPRO is required for this feature. To find out what the extra ShieldPRO features are and how to purchase, please follow this link here.