Abstract: Private keys for a public key cryptography system are protected within private key storage and communication by the requirement of a password to extract the private key based on a password during decryption. Upon receipt of a message encrypted with the public key, both the public key and the protected private key are retrieved from key storage. Interception of this transaction is useless since the protected private key alone cannot be utilized to decrypt the received message. A user is authenticated by extracting a potential private key from the protected private key utilizing a hashed password value, encrypting a well-known message with the public key, decrypting the encrypted well-known message utilizing the potential private key, and comparing the original and decrypted well-known messages. If they match, the extracted private key is employed to decrypt the received message.