Discord
Discord lets people exchange messages, make voice and video calls, and share their screens in groups. It’s made by Discord, based in the United States.
Criminals have used its name in fake downloads or scams, so get it only from discord.com.
What it is
People use Discord to talk with friends, play games together and join communities. Groups are called servers, with separate channels for different topics. Some are private and invitation-only; others are public.
On a Mac, Discord uses microphone and camera access for calls, and screen recording access for screen sharing. It stores messages and files you send. While running, it can also collect information about the game you are playing; privacy settings control how this is collected and displayed.
Discord provides ordinary chat and calling features, but public communities can include people you do not know. Its optional Family Center lets parents review a teen's contacts and servers and manage some privacy settings. It does not show parents the contents of messages.
Who makes it
Discord is a communications software company based in San Francisco whose chat service launched in May 2015. Its legal name is Discord Inc.. Its website is discord.com.
Is it the real one?
Every Mac app carries a signature from the developer who made it. Apple checks who the developer is before handing out the certificate, and macOS refuses to open an app whose signature has been tampered with.
HARD hasn’t yet recorded the signature on a real copy of Discord. Its Mac app shows who signed the copy you have.
Its bundle ID, the name macOS knows it by, is com.hnc.Discord or com.hnc.DiscordPTB or com.hnc.DiscordCanary or com.hnc.DiscordDevelopment. Download it only from discord.com, not from an ad or a link someone sends you.
Fakes. In July 2024, ThreatDown reported phishing emails that used Discord's file-hosting service to deliver malware. The attackers abused Discord's hosting infrastructure to distribute malicious files.
What it connects to
In normal use, Discord talks to these places on the internet. A firewall that asks before apps connect, like the one in HARD’s Mac app, will show them.
| Address | Why |
|---|---|
discord.com | Account and messaging services |
gateway.discord.gg | Live messages and connection events |
cdn.discordapp.com | Images, avatars and shared files |
*.discord.media | Voice call connections |
What it can see
macOS asks you before an app can use these. You can change them any time in System Settings → Privacy & Security.
| Permission | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| Microphone | Lets other people hear you in voice and video calls. |
| Camera | Shows your camera video during calls. |
| Screen & System Audio Recording | Shares your screen and audio during streams and calls. |
Security record
Problems with Discord or Discord in the last three years, newest first. Keeping the app up to date covers the ones that were fixed.
| When | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| A disclosed flaw in Discord's libdave call-encryption library could let an attacker controlling call-signalling messages add an unauthorised participant to an encrypted call; it was fixed in libdave 1.2.0. | ↗ | |
| Discord disclosed a breach involving a customer-support provider that exposed support records and potentially government-ID photos for about 70,000 users; it revoked the provider's access and launched an investigation. | ↗ |
References
- Discord's Apple app association file discord.com
- Discord macOS bundle version history doesitarm.com
- Discord company information discord.com
- About Discord discord.com
- What is Discord? A guide for parents and educators discord.com
- Discord Privacy Policy discord.com
- Download Discord discord.com
- macOS install and updating errors support.discord.com
- Discord changelog archive discord.com
- Discord API reference docs.discord.com
- Discord Gateway documentation docs.discord.com
- Discord voice connection documentation docs.discord.com
- Discord voice and video troubleshooting guide support.discord.com
- Discord voice, video and streaming guide support.discord.com
- Apple: Control access to screen and system audio recording on Mac support.apple.com
- ThreatDown: New phishing campaign uses Discord for payload delivery threatdown.com
- NVD: CVE-2026-104480 nvd.nist.gov
- Discord libdave 1.2.0 release github.com
- Discord: Update on a security incident involving third-party customer service discord.com