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Administration

Security and privacy

Cliedesk keeps all support data in your WordPress database. It sends nothing to a Cliedesk service.

Most settings on this page are in Settings → Privacy & security → Security. Only Owners can change them.

For spam, bot checks, links and files, see Abuse protection, links and files. For the chat widget’s privacy modes and customer consent, see Visitor privacy and consent.

Single sign-on

The helpdesk at /desk uses the normal WordPress sign-in. People who are not signed in go to the WordPress login page. So any single sign-on (SSO) or social sign-in plugin for WordPress also signs agents in to Cliedesk. Requiring SSO for everyone comes with Cliedesk Pro (see Single sign-on and IP allowlist).

Confirm your password

Some changes are sensitive, for example roles, security settings or deleting a conversation forever. Cliedesk then shows Confirm your password.

  1. Enter your WordPress Password.
  2. Select Confirm and continue.

The confirmation covers sensitive changes for 15 minutes by default. Owners can change this with Password confirmation lasts (minutes).

Require two-factor authentication

Cliedesk uses the site’s two-factor plugin, such as Two Factor, Wordfence or WP 2FA.

  1. Under Require two-factor authentication, choose Everyone with helpdesk access or Administrators only.
  2. Set Days to set up 2FA (14 by default).
  3. Select Save security settings.

People without two-factor see a banner with Set up two-factor authentication. When the time runs out, they cannot use the helpdesk until they set it up on their WordPress profile.

Sign-in rules

  • Longest sign-in (hours): people sign in again after this time (12 hours by default).
  • Sign out after idle minutes: 0 means never.

New places. Turn on the setting security.new_location_check (off by default) to protect people without two-factor. When such a person opens the helpdesk from a country or network they have not used before, they get an email with a confirmation link. The link works once, for one hour. The helpdesk stays closed until they open it. Cliedesk learns the first place on its own and remembers confirmed places. It keeps no IP addresses and calls no outside service. People with two-factor are not asked.

Login protection. Setup Health warns when the site has no login protection, such as a lockout after failed logins or password rules. Use a WordPress security plugin for this.

To see where you are signed in, open My profile and go to Signed-in devices. Select Sign out other devices or Sign out everywhere if you see a device you do not know.

Emergency lockdown

Lockdown ends every session except those of Owners and Admins. It keeps everyone else out until you turn it off.

  1. Go to Emergency lockdown.
  2. Enter a Reason.
  3. Select Turn lockdown on.

Select Turn lockdown off when the problem is solved.

Strict mode

Strict mode sets the strictest privacy and security settings in one step, for example two-factor for every role and shorter sessions. While it is on, settings can only be made stricter. Turning it off restores your previous values.

Hide personal data

People without the permission to view personal data see email addresses, phone numbers and card numbers masked, for example j***@example.com.

To remove text from a message for good:

  1. Open the message menu and select Redact….
  2. Select the text, or tick Email addresses, Phone numbers or Card numbers.
  3. Select Redact.

The text becomes [redacted] for everyone. The original can be kept for a while (30 days by default). People allowed to see it can select View original. This is recorded in the audit log.

Customer sessions and identity

Customers who are signed in to WordPress are recognised in the chat and the portal from their WordPress login, also on cached pages. Nothing the browser sends can change who they are. Guests show as Visitor #number until they share their details, and see only the conversations of their own browser.

  • Keep visitor chat sessions (days) (Settings → Privacy & security → Security, Signed identity and visitor sessions): how long a browser remembers a visitor’s chat. 30 days by default. 0 means until the browser closes.
  • When a customer signs out of WordPress, their chat session ends.
  • End all sessions on a contact’s page signs that customer out of the chat and the portal on every device and ends their email links at once, for example after their account was taken over.
  • Cliedesk sets no cookies of its own. What the chat and portal keep in the browser is listed in Settings → Privacy → Policy guide in WordPress, for your cookie or privacy policy.

Other sites and apps. When the chat or the JS SDK runs on another website or in an app, that site’s server can tell Cliedesk who the visitor is with a signed token:

  1. Under Signed identity and visitor sessions, select New key and copy the secret to your server. It is shown only once.
  2. Your developer signs a short-lived token with it (see the SDK guide).
  3. Paste a token in Test a token to see what it says and what is wrong with it.

Two keys can be active. To change the key, make a new one, update your server, then remove the old key. A token that is expired, wrongly signed or names an unknown field makes the visitor a guest; the chat keeps working. To let only identified customers start conversations, set Who may start conversations to signed-in customers.

Protected fields. Some fields must never change from the browser, for example a customer’s plan or account ID. Open Settings → Conversations → Field access and tick Protected for the field. Then the chat widget, forms and customers cannot change it: the other values save, the protected one is skipped. A signed token (above) and the server API can still change it. The widget’s JavaScript API never sets fields. Setup Health lists fields that are sent from the browser.

Notifications without message text

Turn on Notifications only say there is a new message, with a link under Settings → Privacy & security → Security → Spam, privacy and erasure to keep message text out of notifications. Push and email notifications then say only that there is a new message, with a link. They show no subject and no text. Strict mode turns this on. Cliedesk never adds tracking to emails to see if they were opened.

Stored credentials

Passwords and keys that Cliedesk needs, such as an SMTP password, are kept encrypted. The key comes from CLIEDESK_ENCRYPTION_KEY in wp-config.php (or the environment), or else from the WordPress salts. No screen and no API ever shows a stored value again, only a short hint.

Settings → Privacy & security → Security → Stored credentials lists each credential with where it is used, when it was changed and when it was last used. Owners (the Manage security permission) can:

  • select Replace to save a new value. The change is written to the audit log.
  • select Remove to delete a credential that nothing uses.

Cliedesk reminds you to replace a credential after security.credential_rotation_days days (365 by default; 0 turns the reminder off). If you change the encryption key, run wp cliedesk vault rekey so every credential keeps working.

Spam and blocking

Agents and above can mark conversations as spam and review the Spam view (see Inbox). Rules for trusted and blocked senders, arrival rules are in Settings → Channels. Blocked IP addresses or countries are in Settings → Privacy & security → Blocked. See the Settings reference.

Spam score. Every message a customer sends gets a spam score from 0 to 100 and a phishing flag, with the reasons (many links, links to an IP address or a link shortener, common spam phrases, phishing phrases next to a link, a failed sender check, and the sender’s history). A new conversation that scores above 70 goes to Spam with its score; above 98 it is marked “almost certain”. Nothing is deleted or rejected: you can release it. Trusted senders are never moved by their score. Change the limits, and how many new conversations one sender may start before more go to Spam, under Spam, privacy and erasure. The AI classifier that learns from your corrections is part of Cliedesk Pro.

Personal data in messages

Card numbers are stored as the last 4 digits only, for example [card •••• 4242], in every channel: email (subject, text and the quoted history), chat, forms (message and field values), notes and text attachments. Numbers that are not real card numbers (they fail the card checksum) stay as they are. This rule cannot be turned off.

Open Settings → Privacy & security → Security → Personal data in messages to set the other classes. They are off until you turn them on: bank account numbers (IBAN), US social security numbers, and your own patterns (a name and a regular expression, for example PAT-\d{6} for a patient number). For each class choose:

  • Redact: removed before it is stored. It cannot be undone.
  • Mask: stored, but shown masked to everyone.
  • Ignore: nothing happens.

Redact also works on text attachments (txt, csv, log, md, json, xml, ics, vcf, up to 5 MB) when they are uploaded (or arrive by email, with Cliedesk Pro). To apply the redact rules to older messages, subjects and text attachments, choose Redact older messages…. It works in the background. AI detection of other personal data is part of Cliedesk Pro.

The same rules are in the settings security.pii_rules and security.pii_patterns, and in the REST API (GET / PUT /wp-json/cliedesk/v1/security/pii, POST /wp-json/cliedesk/v1/security/pii/redact-existing).

Trash

Conversations in Trash are deleted for good after 30 days. Only Cliedesk Admins and Owners see Trash and can Delete forever…. Change the days, the largest file in a message and the allowed file types under Trash and files.

Retention rules

Retention rules decide what is deleted after how many days: conversations (which can also be anonymised, and filtered by channel and status), spam, unsent drafts, customer timeline events, anonymous widget visitors and page view history. Each rule shows how many items it affects now. After a change, select Preview to see the new count, then Save retention rules. A nightly job removes exactly those items. By default spam and drafts go after 30 days, timeline events after 13 months, visitors after 90 days and page views after 30 days.

Audit log

Settings → Privacy & security → Audit log lists every sensitive change, export and sign-in. Entries cannot be changed or deleted. Admins and Owners can filter the log, select Export CSV, or select Check the log is intact.

Privacy requests

Cliedesk works with the WordPress privacy tools in Tools → Export Personal Data and Tools → Erase Personal Data. An erase request anonymizes the person’s messages by default; choose Delete support data under WordPress erasure requests to delete them instead.

The Compliance pack offers ready-made documents about how your helpdesk handles data, filled in from your settings. Review them before you share them.

Setup Health and updates

Setup Health checks HTTPS, two-factor coverage, session length and more, and explains how to fix each problem. When a newer Cliedesk version is a security release, a banner tells you to update.