There are quite a few security plugins available to monitor your WordPress instance. Most are focused on identifying users who have logged in and may have made changes to your site that could pose a security risk or configured a plugin or theme that may break it. Having an activity log is an ideal way to way to track these issues and changes down.
Unfortunately, there’s one thing in common with most of the third-party plugins out there that do this, though… they operate within your WordPress site. So, if you’re site goes down… how do you access the activity log to see what happened? Well, you can’t.
Jetpack Security
Jetpack is a collection of features – both free and paid – that can be added through a single plugin in WordPress. The biggest differentiator for Jetpack is that it’s written, published, and supported by the same company that develops the core code of WordPress, Automattic. In other words, you simply can’t get a more reliable and compatible offering than that!
On Martech Zone, I subscribe to both Jetpack Professional as well as their Site Search, which provides outstanding internal search results as well as some awesome filter options to narrow your search. Part of the Professional subscription includes Jetpack Security, which provides:
- Automated WordPress backups with 1-click restores
- WordPress malware scanning on core files, themes, and plugins – including identifying known vulnerabilities.
- WordPress brute force attack protection from malicious attackers
- Downtime monitoring with email notifications (along with notifications when your site is back up)
- Comment spam protection for those ridiculous comment bots
- Secure authentication – Sign in to WordPress sites quickly and securely, and add optional two-factor authentication.
A hidden gem within Jetpack’s Security features is its Activity Log, though. Through an integration with the core WordPress site, I can access an activity log of every event that’s happening on my site:
The Jetpack activity log has some exceptional filtering, allowing me to set a date range for the activity and filter by user activity, post & page activity, media changes, plugin changes, comments, backups & restores, widget changes, site setting changes, downtime monitoring, and theme changes.
Activity Log is fantastic for WordPress administrators to see every site change and take the guesswork out of repairing a site if a user breaks it. You’ll get to see exactly what happened and when so that you can take corrective action.
Jetpack Mobile App
Jetpack also has its own Mobile App for iOS or Android that you can easily access your Activity Log in as well. All of the same date range and activity type filters are available on the mobile application as well.
More than 5 million WordPress sites trust Jetpack for their website security and performance. Jetpack is listed on the list of our favorite WordPress plugins.
Get Started With Jetpack Security
Disclaimer: I am an affiliate for Jetpack, Jetpack Search, and Jetpack Security.
