Discord Server Incident Response: A Practical Playbook for Community Teams
Discord Server Incident Response: A Practical Playbook for Community Teams
Learn how to prepare for Discord raids, phishing, compromised accounts and bot abuse.
What Counts as a Community Incident?
A community incident is an event that threatens member safety, server operations, or trust. Examples include coordinated spam, malicious links, unauthorized permission changes, and compromised moderator accounts.
1. Prepare Before an Incident
Assign an incident lead and backup. Review administrator permissions, moderation roles, bot access, and integrations. Prepare clear communication templates and evidence-handling procedures before problems arise.
2. Detect and Verify
Identify what happened, when it began, and which channels or members are affected. Separate confirmed facts from assumptions. Remember that familiar accounts can also become compromised.
3. Contain the Threat
- Temporarily restrict affected channels.
- Remove harmful content when appropriate.
- Review suspicious roles and integrations.
- Investigate compromised accounts.
- Preserve necessary incident evidence.
4. Communicate With Members
Explain what is known, what is being investigated, and what members should do. Avoid speculation, unnecessary personal information, and repeating malicious links.
5. Recover and Review
Verify that compromised access has been addressed, check bot permissions and integrations, and restore normal operations carefully. Afterwards, review what happened and document improvements.
Incident Response Checklist
- Incident lead and backup assigned
- Privileged roles reviewed
- Evidence-handling process documented
- Member communication prepared
- Containment actions understood
- Recovery checks completed
- Moderation team trained
Keep Your Community Safer
A prepared moderation team can respond more effectively when problems arise. Explore more resources on Discordium.
