Discord, with its over 200 million active users is an amazing place to host communities for hobbyist, gamers, businesses, and much more. This diversity of groups is the reason of the app’s success, however, with it comes some security challenges. Many bots and scammers crawl from server to server looking to pick on newcomers for financial gain.

CAPTCHA an easy but failing practice

To prevent bot accounts from ruining servers many admins have added CAPTCHA barriers. This is the simplest way to combat the issue, however, it is not foolproof. Here are the issues I have identified:

1. Bots are getting smarter every day and it essentially becomes an arms race. With the recent growth AI OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Bots will be able to beat these systems.

2. CAPTCHA does not prevent human accounts with bad intentions from raining havoc. Many scammers on the platform join servers with a “human account” and they use a Bot to start spamming and DMing members of that community as they now have access to member profiles.

3. Friction to entry - I don’t know about you, but I personally despise having to go through CAPTCHA gates. Communities that are trying to grow will see a major click-through rate decrease simply because of this annoying step in the joining phase.

4. The Discord interface for CAPTCHA is poor. The pop-up to enter your code usually blocks your view of the image you are supposed to decipher.

The Solution - a true Verification channel

To properly secure your server, what you is a solution that verifies your users based on their identity, not on whether or not they can complete a simple puzzle.

Bind allows you to gate access to your server’s information based on whether or not the admins recognise the user. The Bind Discord bot gathers profile information of newcomers with a simple 2-click solution to match it to your list of verified accounts. You can use a CRM integration or a CSV list for it to compare profiles, allowing you to be sure that only the members that should have access, do have access.

The Role of Bind in Discord Server Security

Bind can significantly enhance Discord server security. For example, you can use Bind to automatically assign roles to new members, thereby controlling their access to certain channels. Similarly, you can set up a command that quickly removes a user's permissions if they are found to be violating the server's rules. By incorporating these best practices and utilizing tools like Bind, you can ensure that your Discord server is a safe and secure platform for all members.

Lastly, it's crucial to educate your server members about the importance of security. Encourage them not to share sensitive information and to report any suspicious behaviour.