Security pillar · The 4C model
Four practices. In order. Thirty minutes each.
Most security advice is a list of twenty things with no order and no end. The 4C Self-Defense Model is four practices, sequenced, that anyone can start today and that make each other easier. Stop after any one of them and you are better off than you were.
The four practices
Why four, and why this order.
C1 · Control Exposure
Decide what is public on purpose. You cannot protect what you have not noticed, so this comes first: search yourself, find what got out by accident, fix one thing.
Read C1C2 · Create Strong Credentials
Make passwords the system's job, not your memory. A password manager plus two-step login on email is the highest-return thirty minutes in the model.
Read C2C3 · Confirm Authenticity
Verify before you trust. Four questions that hold up under pressure, then hang up and call back on a number you already had.
Read C3C4 · Clean Up Footprints
Old accounts, old access, shared passwords. Nothing breaks when you skip this, right up until it does. Close one thing a month.
Read C4The pages above are written for schools, where we teach the model most often. The practices are identical for a household, a nonprofit, or a campaign.
Who it is for
Written for people with a full-time job that is not security.
We teach the 4C model to grassroots organizations, campaigns, churches, families, and students. It needs no budget, no IT department, and no permission. Organizations that want it delivered to their whole team can bring us in.
Share the model. It is free.
The 4C workshop materials are published under a Creative Commons license so any community can teach it.