1. A method comprises: receiving a certificate signing request (CSR) from a user device regarding a user, wherein the CSR includes user information regarding the user; generating a set of hidden passwords based on the user information; accessing a set of authenticating units to obtain a set of passkeys based on the set of hidden passwords and a set of random numbers; retrieving a set of encrypted shares based on the user information; decrypting the set of encrypted shares based on the set of passkeys and the set of random numbers to produce a set of encoded shares; decoding, in accordance with a share encoding function, the set of encoded shares to recapture a private key associated with the user; generating a user signed certificate based on the private key; discarding the private key to substantially protect the private key from the user device; and outputting the user signed certificate to the user device.