How to stop a Discord server nuke (and recover from one)
To stop a Discord nuke, run an antinuke bot above every other role, keep admin and other dangerous permissions to as few people as possible, whitelist only fully trusted accounts and require 2FA for moderators - then, if a nuke happens, the bot punishes the attacker in milliseconds and restores what was deleted.
What is a nuke?
A nuke is a fast, deliberate wrecking of a server by someone who already has permissions: a moderator who turned on the server, a moderator whose account was hacked, or a bot that was given admin. In seconds they delete channels and roles, ban members and hand admin to friends.
How nukes usually start
- A staff account is phished (fake login pages, token-stealing "verification" bots, malicious files).
- A bot with admin is added from an untrusted source, or a trusted bot's token leaks.
- Someone is handed admin "temporarily" and never has it taken away.
Prevention checklist
- Add an antinuke bot and put its role at the top.
- Turn on adminguard (
?antinuke adminguard on) so dangerous roles can't stay on unwhitelisted members. - Turn on bot-add protection (
?antinuke botadd on) - most nukes need a bot. - Give moderators only the permissions they use; very few people need Administrator.
- Turn on 2FA requirement for moderation in Server Settings > Safety Setup.
If you were nuked
Remove the attacker's roles or ban them (an antinuke bot does this for you), then check the audit log for every bot added in the last day and kick the ones you don't recognise.
If a lockdown took permissions off roles, ?antinuke restore puts them back. Unban wrongly banned members with ?unban all once you're sure it's safe, and change the passwords of every staff account involved.
Questions
Can a bot stop a nuke completely?
It can stop it within the first actions: a good antinuke punishes the attacker after the first destructive event, so damage is limited to a few actions instead of the whole server.
Can antinuke protect against the owner?
No - Discord doesn't let bots act on the server owner. Protect the owner account with 2FA and a unique password.
Protect your server with Rage - free.
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