How to protect your Discord server from raids and nukes
Raids and nukes are two different threats. A raid is a flood of throwaway accounts arriving at once to spam, harass, or drown out your community; a nuke is a single trusted or compromised account abusing its permissions to delete channels, mass-ban members, or blast webhooks. Both can wreck a server in seconds · and both are far easier to prevent than to clean up. Here are five steps that harden any Discord server, no matter which bot you run.
- 1
Apply least privilege to every role
Most of the damage in a raid or a nuke is done with permissions that were handed out too freely. Start from zero and give each role only what it genuinely needs: keep Administrator on as few roles as possible, and make sure @everyone can't create invites, mention everyone, or manage roles, channels, and messages. The fewer accounts that can do harm, the smaller your attack surface.
- 2
Make new members prove they're real
Raids depend on disposable accounts joining in bulk. Raise your server's verification level, require a verified email or phone number, and turn on rules screening or an onboarding gate so newcomers can't post or reach real channels until they clear a checkpoint. A short delay at the door stops most low-effort bot floods before they ever begin.
- 3
Monitor join waves for coordinated attacks
A raid usually shows up as a sudden spike of arrivals · dozens of accounts in seconds, often created around the same date and sharing an avatar or a near-identical username. Keep a channel that logs every join so a wave is impossible to miss, and decide in advance what a suspicious spike looks like for your server, so you can respond to the whole batch in one move instead of chasing accounts one at a time.
- 4
Restrict who can manage roles, channels, and webhooks
A nuke isn't a flood · it's one account with too much power deleting channels, mass-banning, or spamming through webhooks. Keep Manage Roles, Manage Channels, Manage Webhooks, and ban/kick abilities on a small, trusted circle, require two-factor authentication for every moderator, and audit your webhooks so a forgotten or leaked one can't be turned against you.
- 5
Keep an audit log and actually watch it
Discord records every ban, role change, channel deletion, and webhook edit in its audit log · but that only helps if someone sees it in time. Mirror the important events into a private moderation channel so a burst of deletions or bans stands out immediately, and review it regularly. The earlier you catch an attack in progress, the more of it you can undo.
How Rainbow handles raids and nukes
Rainbow watches your audit log and every join in real time. When a suspicious wave arrives, it recognizes coordinated accounts · close creation dates, an identical avatar, a similar username · and handles the whole batch at once, with a report posted in your moderation channel. Its anti-nuke is deliberately non-destructive: instead of auto-kicking or banning, it strips the roles that carry dangerous permissions and times out the account, so the member stays and their roles can be restored if it turns out to be a false alarm. Known offenders can go on a blacklist to keep them out for good. All of it is free.
Try Rainbow for free →What's the difference between a raid and a nuke?
A raid is a flood of accounts joining at once to spam or harass, so your defenses focus on the door · verification and join monitoring. A nuke is an insider or compromised account abusing management permissions to delete channels, roles, or mass-ban, so your defense is tight permission control and audit-log visibility. Different attacks, different countermeasures.
Can automatic protection ban real members by mistake?
It can, if it's set to kick or ban on sight. Safer setups act reversibly first · timeouts and role removal · so a false positive costs a few minutes instead of a member. Rainbow's anti-nuke is non-destructive by design: it strips dangerous roles and times the account out rather than kicking or banning, which means the member stays and their roles can be restored.
Do I need a paid bot to stop raids and nukes?
No. Native Discord settings · a higher verification level, clean permissions, and two-factor authentication for moderators · block a great deal on their own and cost nothing. Rainbow adds real-time raid and nuke protection on top, also for free.
Raids and nukes aren't a matter of luck · they're a matter of preparation. Tighten your permissions, gate new arrivals, and keep eyes on your audit log before anything happens, and most attacks fizzle out before they ever touch your community. Layer a bot that reacts in real time on top, and you'll be covered for the ones that slip through.