Patent ID: 8813243

Claim:
A method comprising: storing a security-related object in a storage structure in a token, wherein the security-related object comprises: an identity reference that identifies a certificate assigned to an owner of the token, wherein the identity reference comprises an issuer name and a serial number associated with the certificate, and a private key identifier, separate from the certificate, that identifies a private key associated with the certificate and assigned to the owner of the token, and wherein the storage structure is indexed according to the identity reference; receiving a request to access an encrypted data object, the request containing the identity reference that identifies the certificate; and accessing, by a processor device, the private key identifier in the storage structure in the token using only the identity reference as an index, wherein the private key identifier is used to decrypt the encrypted data object and wherein accessing the private key identifier comprises constructing an application program interface (API) command to retrieve the corresponding private key identifier using only the identity reference.