Security FirstJanuary 8, 2025•Updated June 8, 2026•4 min read
Security Checklist for Discord-Based Refund Bots
Lock down permissions, tokens, and infrastructure for any Discord bot that touches your FiveM economy. Follow this 9-point checklist before launch.
Treat your Discord bot like production infrastructure
A refund bot can reach your money, items, weapons, and reputation. Whether you use LD Refund System or roll your own, treat the integration as seriously as your game server. Use this checklist to tighten every layer before staff start issuing commands.
The risk is not only a stolen Discord token. A poorly configured refund bot can over-permission junior staff, expose database credentials, duplicate economy items, or leave no audit trail after a bad approval. Security needs to cover Discord, your FiveM server, the database layer, and the people using the commands.
Restrict Discord permissions
Create a dedicated bot role and disallow administrator by default
Limit command usage to staff-only channels using Discord's built-in command permissions
Rotate invite links and require 2FA for everyone with refund access
Avoid giving the bot Administrator unless a documented feature truly requires it. Most refund workflows need slash commands, message embeds, thread access, and webhook logging. Keep those permissions scoped to refund channels and staff review channels so a compromised bot cannot write across your entire community.
Harden command roles
Discord command permissions should mirror your staff hierarchy. Viewing refund history, creating low-value item refunds, approving weapons, and cancelling refunds are different risk levels. Splitting those actions by role prevents a new moderator from accidentally issuing economy-changing rewards.
Create a read-only support role for lookup and status commands
Give standard moderators low-value item refunds only
Reserve weapon, vehicle, and bulk refunds for senior staff
Require owner-level access for token changes, database settings, and license changes
Separate sensitive infrastructure
Never connect the bot directly to your production database without middleware. LD Refund System proxies queries through rate-limited endpoints, but if you maintain custom scripts use read-only replicas or stored procedures. That way a compromised token cannot run arbitrary SQL.
If your bot needs write access, keep the write operations narrow. Use stored procedures or API endpoints that can only create, approve, cancel, or claim a refund record. The bot should not be able to run open-ended SQL, modify unrelated tables, or read personal data it does not need.
Token hygiene
Store your Discord bot token in a secrets manager (1Password, Vault, AWS Secrets Manager). Rotate it at least quarterly and every time someone with access leaves your team.
Log security-sensitive actions
Security controls only help if you can investigate what happened. Log every command execution with the staff member, Discord channel, player identifier, request payload, approval decision, and final claim result. Keep failed permission checks too; repeated denied attempts often reveal training problems or abuse attempts.
Token rotations and bot configuration changes
Permission updates for staff roles
Refund approvals above your high-value threshold
Cancelled refunds and changed reward contents
Failed command attempts from unauthorized users
Monitor, alert, and respond
Security ends when monitoring stops. Enable LD Refund System alerts for abnormal refund volume, log all command input, and mirror the audit log into a private staff-review channel. When you see suspicious activity, revoke the license key, freeze pending claims, and run a token rotation immediately.
“A refund bot is part of your economy infrastructure. Treat every permission change like a production change, not a Discord convenience.”
— Security review note
Test incident response before launch
Security planning is incomplete until staff know what to do when something goes wrong. Run a short tabletop exercise before launch: pretend a moderator token was compromised, a high-value refund was issued incorrectly, or the bot started failing permission checks. The goal is to confirm that owners can freeze approvals, rotate secrets, preserve logs, and communicate with players without improvising under pressure.
Disable refund creation while keeping read-only history available
Rotate the Discord bot token and invalidate old invite links
Export affected audit records before making manual corrections
Post a staff-only incident note with the timeline and next owner
Document the response steps in the same place you document refund permissions. A fast, calm response protects the server economy and shows staff that security is a normal operating practice, not a panic button.
Run this checklist before launch and again after every staff restructure. The safest setup is boring: minimal permissions, narrow database access, visible audit logs, and a response plan that your senior staff already know how to execute.
Working through this list before the first refund goes live saves nights of incident response later.