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A nuke often takes less than a minute. An account with too many permissions deletes channel after channel, removes roles, bans members and finally creates a few spam webhooks. Usually it isn't an angry team member behind it, but a hijacked account or a bot that someone carelessly gave the Administrator permission.
Verification and word filters don't help against a nuke, because the attack comes from inside. Good Discord anti-nuke protection therefore has two parts: handing out permissions so that a single account can't break much, and a bot that detects mass actions, stops them right away and undoes the damage afterwards. You set up both in this guide.
How a nuke works
Almost every nuke follows the same pattern:
- Access: the attacker takes over an account with moderation or admin permissions, for example through a fake login link or a stolen session token. Or they get someone to invite a rigged bot with full permissions.
- Escalating permissions: they often give themselves or @everyone dangerous permissions first, so the role hierarchy doesn't stop them.
- Destruction: within seconds, channels and roles are deleted, members banned or kicked, emojis removed.
- Follow-up: new channels and webhooks flood the server with spam, and fresh invites bring in more accounts.
Discord itself barely limits actions like these. Anyone with the Manage Channels permission can delete as many channels as they like. This is exactly where anti-nuke comes in: it counts per account what happens in a short time and steps in as soon as it looks like destruction.
Permissions first, then the bot
No anti-nuke bot can stop an account that sits above it. Before you turn anything on, clean up your permissions:
- Administrator for one or two people only, people you would trust with the whole server. Moderators don't need it; targeted permissions such as Ban Members, Moderate Members for timeouts and Manage Messages are enough.
- No Administrator for bots that don't really need it. When you invite a bot, Discord shows the requested permissions, and you can untick individual ones there. A music or stats bot needs neither Administrator nor Manage Roles.
- Move the Lizbot role up: Lizbot can only act against members whose highest role is below its own. Drag the Lizbot role above all staff roles in Server Settings under
FAQ
What is the difference between anti-nuke and raid protection?
Raid protection fends off attacks from outside, that is, lots of new accounts joining at the same time. Anti-nuke protects against accounts that already have permissions on your server. The two complement each other; more in the guide Raid protection.
Is the anti-nuke protection free?
Detection, countermeasure, alert and pausing invites are included in the Free plan. Exact undo of incidents and daily structure snapshots are available from Pro on, snapshots every 6 hours with 7 days of history on Studio.
Does anti-nuke protect me if the owner account is hijacked?
Lizbot never acts against the server owner. With Alert for the server owner too you still get a message, and you can still undo the incident. So make sure to protect your own account with two-factor authentication.
Matching Lizbot features
- Moderation and AutoMod for DiscordEvery warning, timeout and ban gets a case number and a reason. Your team sees at a glance what has already happened with a member.
- Backups for Discord serversLizbot backs up roles, channels, permissions and all Lizbot settings, plus level progress in manual backups if you want. If something breaks, you restore only what is missing or the whole server.
More guides
Let Liz handle it for you
Invite Lizbot, set it up in the dashboard, done. The Free plan stays free.
Rather ask first? In the support Discord