NOTE So, you’re thinking, what would prevent a malicious administrator from retrieving the private key and reading the private files? The answer lies in the system and in the proper application of controls such as enforcing role separation. A specific template is assigned to trusted user to act as key recovery agents. To recover the keys, a user account must obtain the certificate. Without this certificate, even an administrator cannot retrieve the keys. In addition, it actually takes two to tango; a CA Administrator and a key recovery agent must cooperate to obtain the archived key. One individual on individual on their own cannot do so. As such, it is a good idea to store important certificates, such as the key Recovery Agent, on a smart card, to ensure that it can’t be duplicated and distributed.