Originally developed for gamers, Discord has become a go-to online hub for communities that prefer the unique forum/social media mix. Over 250 million monthly active users rely on the app for easy communication, file sharing, and community building.
Given the volume of information flowing through the platform’s servers, one question comes to mind: Is Discord secure, and can it efficiently protect user data?
This guide will provide a detailed overview of the platform’s security features, as well as discuss potential security risks you should consider when using Discord.
How Does Discord Work?
Discord lets users communicate via chat, voice, or video. Users can create or join “communities” based on shared interests and hobbies. Discord’s forum-like structure is one of its strongest appeals, with the platform being organized into:
- Servers: Virtual community-focused, where users of shared interests gather
- Channels: Smaller, topic-specific spaces within each server
Additionally, users can communicate via direct messages and join group chats. The platform also offers bots for a streamlined user experience, integrations for expanded functionality, and various interactive games.
How Secure Is Discord? A Closer Look
To offer a clear overview of Discord’s level of security, we’ll analyze its four notable features:
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Encryption
- Community moderation
- Extensive privacy settings
1. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Discord enables you to set up MFA to further protect your account from unauthorized access. You can choose among three types:
MFA Type | Description |
Passkeys and security keys | Discord supports encrypted digital keys you create using your face, fingerprint, or screen lock and store in your password manager. They’re easy to use and resistant to phishing. |
Authenticator apps | Discord lets you register an authenticator app and log in with a time-based one-time password (TOTP). The method offers security, but it can put your account at risk if you lose your phone or share your TOTP with someone. |
SMS/texts | While Discord allows you to set up SMS-based MFA and log in with the help of an OTP sent via text, the platform doesn’t recommend this option. Hackers can intercept your phone network and steal this code, gaining access to your account. |
Despite the value of enabling MFA, many users avoid it because they’re afraid of losing access to their accounts if their phone or laptop is lost or stolen. Discord accounts for such scenarios and enables users to set up backup codes. These one-time codes allow you to bypass MFA and recover and reconfigure your account. Note that every backup code can only be used once, so generate a new code whenever you’ve used your previous one.
2. Encryption
Discord offers two types of encryption:
- Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption: The app relies on this encryption for data in transit (such as chat messages). TLS prevents third parties from reading your messages while they’re travelling from your device. Once the messages reach Discord’s servers, they get decrypted.
- End-to-end encryption (E2EE): Discord offers E2EE for audio and video, providing additional privacy and security. With E2EE, only you (the sender) and the recipient can access the content; audio and video don’t get decrypted when they reach Discord’s servers, so third parties can’t intercept them.
3. Community Moderation
Discord moderators (or “mods”) play a crucial role in keeping Discord servers and channels a secure space by:
- Enforcing specific rules
- Resolving conflicts
- Managing spam
- Controlling content
To help moderators excel in their roles and contribute to the app’s security, Discord offers a range of community moderation tools and resources. Mods can control permissions, delete inappropriate messages, ban users, or use bots to automate moderation and simplify tasks such as content management.
4. Extensive Privacy Settings
Discord helps you stay safe while using the platform through various privacy settings that allow you to control who sends you messages, limit contact with specific users, and customize friend request privileges.
Here’s how to control who can send you messages:
- Open Discord and select your profile picture in the bottom-right corner
- Tap the cogwheel in the upper-right corner to open settings
- Choose Content & Social and scroll down to find Server settings
- To disable receiving direct messages from other server members across Discord servers, switch the toggle button next to Direct messages. To customize settings for each server, use the Server settings dropdown menu
If you’d like to limit contact with a specific Discord user, you can ignore or block them. Follow the steps below to ignore a user:
- Tap the user’s avatar
- Select the three dots in the upper-right corner
- Choose Ignore
When you ignore a user, their messages are hidden in your DMs, servers, and group chats. You can quickly view them by selecting Show next to them.
To block a user, follow these steps:
- Tap a channel’s name to see all members
- Find a member you want to block and tap their name
- Select the three dots in the upper-right corner and choose Block
By blocking a user, you will no longer see their profile details. They won’t be able to message you or add you as a friend.
Discord also lets you customize who can send you friend requests: everyone, friend of friends, or only server members.
To adjust preferences, go to your settings, choose Content & Social, and scroll down to Friend requests.
Bonus read: Explore the level of security other messaging apps offer in our guides below:
What Are the Potential Security Risks of Discord?
Despite Discord’s effort to enhance security across the platform, there are still certain risks to be aware of, notably:
- Lack of E2EE: Discord offers E2EE, but only for audio and video, which means your text messages aren’t as protected. They're decrypted once they reach Discord’s servers, so malicious actors can intercept them.
- Risk of scams, spam, and malware: While Discord offers extensive community moderation options and account-level controls, the risk of encountering scams, spam, and malware remains. This is especially true for larger servers, where mods don’t have as much control over the content due to the sheer volume of messages.
- Extensive data collection policy: Besides requesting a lot of your information when you sign up, Discord automatically collects certain data (such as information about your device or app usage) while you’re on the platform. It may share this information with third parties, which raises concerns about data breaches and leaks.
The Final Verdict: How Safe Is Discord?
The kind of security you get with Discord largely depends on your settings and habits while using the platform. While most everyday users consider it safe, the platform has a significant drawback: the lack of E2EE for text messages and images. This could expose your data and communications to third parties, leading to breaches and leaks.
If malicious actors succeed in intercepting your messages, they could use the collected information to execute more complex cyberattacks that could lead to serious consequences, such as financial loss or identity theft.
How To Enhance Discord’s Security
While you can’t change Discord’s built-in security options, there are a few actions you can take to reduce safety risks and enhance your privacy, such as:
- Enabling MFA: MFA is optional on Discord. Considering that this additional security layer can prevent unauthorized access to your account, enabling MFA is highly encouraged.
- Using strong passwords: Passwords that contain your personal information or a string of numbers such as “123456” may be easy to guess and prone to brute force attacks. Always use a unique combination of letters, numbers, and symbols, and avoid reusing your password across platforms.
- Leverage Discord’s privacy settings: For extra privacy, adjust who can message you and send friend requests. Regularly review your settings and monitor any new features that may help you protect your account.
- Choose the servers you’ll join: Large public servers are more prone to malware, phishing, and spam. To reduce your exposure to potential risks, avoid joining these servers altogether.
- Pay attention to suspicious links and files: Links, files, and other attachments could contain viruses, potentially compromising your account and device. If you’re not sure a file is legitimate, don’t open it, even if it comes from an account you’ve interacted with before.
- Avoid sharing your personal information: Your personal information can be used for phishing and other targeted attacks. Avoid sharing it with anyone on Discord or any other online platform.
Think Beyond App Security
While carefully choosing the apps you’ll use is an important step toward security and privacy, it doesn’t protect you from threats coming from your phone network.
If your carrier collects extensive data but doesn’t offer robust measures to protect it, you’ll be prone to identity thefts and fraud regardless of the apps you rely on. This is particularly true if you’re using legacy carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile that rely on outdated infrastructure and have experienced major data breaches over the years.
To ensure network-level security, switch to Cape.
Meet Cape: The Secure Carrier Designed for Today’s Threats
We share the most intimate details of our everyday lives with our cell phones. In order to stay connected, our cell phones share that information with local cell networks, and in turn, those cell networks share our data with each other.
While this system is what makes connectivity possible, it was also built with interoperability as its priority, rather than security. The global cell network is vulnerable to a number of threats, as seen through headlines about major carrier data breaches we see time and time again. When major carriers aren’t losing our sensitive personal data in breaches and hacks, they’re actively selling it to ad networks, data brokers, and third parties.
At Cape, we believe that privacy and security shouldn’t have to be sacrificed for connectivity. That’s why we built our service with privacy principles and security features at its core, including:
Cape eliminates the risk of your sensitive data falling into the wrong hands by not even asking for it. When you make your Cape account, we don’t ask for your name, address, or SSN. We only collect the information that’s necessary to provide the service, and we retain it for the least amount of time possible.
During account creation, you receive a unique 24-word phrase that generates a private key tied to your phone number. This pass phrase is required to move your number to a new device or carrier. Nobody else, not even us at Cape, has access to the phrase, meaning there’s absolutely no way for bad actors to transfer your number to their device, effectively nullifying the possibility of SIM swapping.
Your phone stores an incredible amount of data, which can be accessed through call and text records. Most mobile carriers store your call and text metadata for years, which can easily fall into the wrong hands.
Cape is built to forget, meaning we delete Call Data Records (CDRs) after just 1 day, ensuring nobody can see who you texted or called, track where the communication took place, or access the sensitive information within CDRs.
All SIM cards are accompanied by International Mobile Subscriber IDs (IMSI). These function as unique identifiers devices use to register with cellular networks. Traditional telcos assign fixed IMSIs to user accounts, meaning the carriers, advertisers, hackers, and other bad actors can exploit them to identify and track your device.
Cape patches this security hole by allowing you to automatically rotate your IMSI every 24 hours. In practice, this means you appear as a different subscriber every day, making it much more difficult for anyone to identify your device or track your movements.
Most people receive One-Time Passwords (OTPs) through unencrypted SMS messages, leaving their most sensitive data and accounts vulnerable to a variety of threats.
Cape allows you to route all SMS/MMS messages through the Cape app, ensuring that every message you receive is middle-to-end encrypted. The messages are then securely decrypted within the Cape app, ensuring only you can see and read their contents.
Note: This feature is only available on iPhone. Android coming soon.
Are you tired of spam messages from brands, phone call surveys, and scammers trying to trick you into sharing sensitive information over the phone? The reason why most people are exposed to these nuisances is that we are often required to share our phone numbers with retailers, websites, apps, and service providers.
While messages and phone calls can be annoying, what’s worse is that your number can easily become a target for data brokers and bad actors. That’s why many people turn to VoIP numbers as secondary lines. VoIPs are a decent option, but they don’t fully solve the issue—they are not encrypted, you can’t use them for 2FA, and they’re an additional cost each month.
When you sign up for Cape, you get two free additional SMS/MMS lines that are middle-to-end encrypted. This allows you to use Secondary Numbers for online shopping, signing up for services and discounts, and receiving secure OTPs, while your primary phone number is reserved for friends and family.
7. Network Lock
Traditional cellular networks were designed for interoperability, not security. Outdated and legacy network protocols like SS7 have vulnerabilities that allow attackers to hack in and track your location, intercept your calls and texts, and steal sensitive information.
Cape’s Network Lock uses a proprietary signaling proxy to verify that your device’s physical location matches the network it’s trying to attach to. If anything looks suspicious, like a mismatched location, we block the connection.
Voicemails can reveal more than you think, from personal messages to authentication codes, yet most voicemail systems are outdated and unencrypted.
Cape encrypts your voicemails so that only you can access them.
To access phone service while traveling abroad, your phone typically needs to connect to local telecom providers. The trouble is, there’s no guarantee all networks are secure, and not every government treats privacy the same.
Cape doesn’t leave anything to chance. We let you route traffic through our U.S.-based mobile core, so you can safely use international data roaming without exposing your identity or sharing sensitive data or communications with foreign carriers.
With Cape, you get up to 15 GB per month of international roaming, included in your monthly plan.
Get Started With Cape Today
If you’re ready to make a switch from legacy telcos to America's privacy-first mobile carrier, visit cape.co/get-cape and test out Cape in practice for just $30 for your first month.
In addition to all the features listed above, you can further enhance your privacy and security with Proton. Our partnership with this technology leader allows you to get Proton Unlimited or Proton VPN Plus for only $1 for the first six months.
