A cryptographic module management apparatus searches for cryptographic module meta-information based on the category information of a requested cryptographic module and, if associated cryptographic module category information is contained in this cryptographic module meta-information, searches for the cryptographic module meta-information of an associated cryptographic module, to generate composite type cryptographic module evaluation information based on this cryptographic module meta-information, select a cryptographic module based on this composite type cryptographic module evaluation information, and read this cryptographic module from a cryptographic module storage portion and output such composite type cryptographic module evaluation information.