ShieldPRO 21.2 Upgrade Guide

ShieldPRO 21.2 is our major release. It introduces many improvements, such as new search and faster capabilities for Activity Log and Traffic Log tables,  improved security reports, added translation into nearly 40 languages and much more.

This guide outlines what have been added/removed, changed, or improved.

Firstly, we're going to explain what major changes are made and which options you'd need to review.

New Added Features

For 21.2.0 release we added

  • Activity Log and Traffic Log tables

We added powerful new search capabilities for Activity Log and Traffic Log tables, including free-text search, plus filters by IP address, username, email, user ID, event description, and metadata values.

There's a new search syntax help panel to guide users through available search options (for example ip: and user_id:).

Please see below screenshots (Activity Log).

Help Panel

Example: Search by IP (full match)

We removed "Alert" and "Debug" WP Activity Log logging levels. Severity labels are more clear now. (see below screenshot)

Additionally, Activity Log and Traffic Log table are running much faster - loading through optimised database queries.

  • Translation into nearly 40 languages

We've completed translation for the Shield Security plugin into nearly 40 languages. We've also hugely improved translation coverage so that practically all text in the plugin can be translated. Our translations were built using our own in-house AI Translations system - so there may be some errors here and there and some translations might be missing. We'll continue working on improvements.

We also added Remote Language Translation Downloads.

Shield now downloads translations on-demand rather than shipping them with the plugin, significantly reducing plugin size. You might see In-plugin notification for available translation downloads like in the below screenshot.

Example: Spanish

We added SilentCAPTCHA bot detection support for Paid Memberships Pro plugin checkout requests.

  • "Create New IP Rule" form visibility

We've made the "Create New IP Rule" button on the Bots & IP Rules table more visible, making it much easier to access and manage IP addresses manually. Clicking it instantly opens a form where you can add your current IP to the whitelist/bypass list, or block any IP with a single click. No more searching through settings—everything you need to whitelist or blacklist IPs manually is now right there on the table.

Changes

Change 1: Security Reports improvements

Security report emails/pages and layouts have been redesigned for improved clarity and a more professional presentation. Enhanced report emails now include richer inline statistics and more detailed scan data (including up to 20 relevant results in key sections).

Example: Alert Report email from scans (hourly)

Example: Info Report email (hourly)

You can now run scheduled Info reports bi-weekly, as shown in the screenshot below.

We also improved report creation flow with better form validation and cleaner date-picker styling, and report email logic to avoid sending redundant informational emails when an alert email is already being sent.

Change 2:  Security Dashboard enhancements

We completely upgraded security dashboard for improved performance and visuals.

Security Dashboard stats & charts

Security Analysis

Improvements Summary

This is a quick summary of the improvements we made for 21.2 release:

  • Major plugin UI refresh

    We've begun rolling out a UI refresh. Not all elements have been updated; more components will be completed with subsequent releases.

  • Faster and cleaner admin experience

    Dashboard visuals, page performance, and smaller-screen navigation have all been refined.

  • Improved log and scan performance

    Log tables load faster and stale malware scan records are cleaned up automatically.

  • Redesigned security reports and emails

    Reports are clearer, include richer inline insights, and avoid redundant email noise.

  • Biweekly report scheduling

    You can now run scheduled security reports every 2 weeks, in addition to existing reporting intervals.

  • Clearer Activity Log severity labels

    Activity events now use consistent severity labels so filtering and triage are easier.

  • Stronger upgrade and admin workflow reliability

    Upgrade handling, redirects, and WordPress admin notice behavior are more reliable and consistent.


For more information on Shield 21.2 release, read the blog article here.