Acala is a software HSM emulator that acts as a universal key store as well as a cryptographic service provider. Acala maintains a central repository for private keys and X.509 certificates and provides a secure environment for cryptographic operations. Acala affords an organization's servers the functionality of a physical hardware security module (HSM) for a fraction of the cost. It stores each servers' credentials in a single encrypted file on any designated storage device (e.g., local hard drive, network share, or removable memory device), and provides cryptographic operations to security-enabled programs through a PKCS11 application programming interface.