A short prompt and an invitation to click the “verify” button. A lot of Discord servers utilize CAPTCHA verification or other forms of protection in order to protect against raids and unauthorized bots. Upon joining, I was immediately greeted with what appeared to be an anti-bot verification prompt. So against all practical advice, I did what I am directing all of you reading not to do, and I joined the server. Certainly, if they wanted me to join, they’d send me a more personalized message than “watch general”, right? I was, however, curious as to where this particular rabbit hole led to. This friend and I simply talk on direct messages occasionally, and they’ve never invited me to a Discord server before. Given my experience, I immediately knew that was likely an automated message sent compromised account. Take a look: My friend’s compromised account sent me a link to join a Discord server called “Sollary” with the message to “watch general”. Her account was compromised in a phishing scheme, and was used to distribute these messages to everyone on her friend list. However, my friend didn’t send this message. This is somebody that I know casually online and talk to occasionally. I received this message from somebody on my friend list today. One thing’s for sure, Discord is popular and it’s here to stay – as such, it’s already being targeted by some innovative phishers. Discord as a platform isn’t good or bad, but it provides the tools for anyone to start their own text/voice/video chat community. Discord has used by gaming communities, social communities, and legitimate grassroots groups, however, Discord has also been used by extremists to organize, by predators and zoo sadists to post “ dog whistles” and find fellow predators, and so on. However, due to its ease of use, it has also attracted a ton of different bad actors of various varieties. I use Discord, and maintain and administer multiple Discord servers, and find it to be a great platform for my use cases. I get asked all the time if Discord is a safe platform, and I find myself unable to give an easy and decisive answer.
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