The private key is used to negotiate a session key, which is then used as the symmetric key for RC4 or whatever stream or block cipher you are using. Those session keys are ephemeral and per-session, so leaking them is only a problem for those sessions.<p>(Also, since it&#x27;s a stream cipher, it can&#x27;t use the same key ever again, else you can xor those ciphertexts to get 2 xored plaintexts, which are much easier to crack.)