¶ Overview
Achieving compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is crucial for healthcare organizations to safeguard patient information and maintain trust. This solution brief outlines how the adoption of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) can assist organizations in meeting HIPAA compliance requirements, providing a secure and efficient approach to healthcare data protection.
¶ How SASE Facilitates HIPAA Compliance?
¶ Secure and Scalable Architecture:
- SASE offers a cloud-native architecture, providing a scalable and secure platform for healthcare organizations to deploy and manage their network security services. This aligns with HIPAA requirements for safeguarding electronic protected health information (ePHI) by ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of healthcare data.
¶ Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA):
- SASE incorporates Zero Trust principles, ensuring that all users and devices are continuously authenticated and authorized before accessing healthcare systems and data. This aligns with HIPAA's focus on access controls and the principle of least privilege, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
¶ Data Encryption:
- SASE includes robust encryption capabilities for data in transit, addressing HIPAA requirements for protecting ePHI. By encrypting communication channels, healthcare organizations can secure patient information as it travels between users, devices, and healthcare applications.
¶ Integrated Security Services:
- SASE integrates a suite of security services such as secure web gateways, firewall-as-a-service, and data loss prevention. This integrated approach aligns with HIPAA controls related to security management and enables healthcare organizations to implement a comprehensive security strategy.
¶ Benefits for HIPAA Compliance
|
Benefit |
Description |
|---|---|
| Data Protection and Confidentiality | SASE's encryption and access control features contribute to maintaining the confidentiality and privacy of patient data, addressing HIPAA requirements. This helps healthcare organizations protect ePHI from unauthorized access and data breaches. |
| Dynamic Access Control | SASE enables dynamic access control based on user identity and trustworthiness, aligning with HIPAA's focus on access controls. This ensures that only authorized personnel have access to patient records, reducing the risk of internal security incidents. |
| Scalable Security Measures | The scalable nature of SASE allows healthcare organizations to adapt their security measures to the evolving threat landscape and changing business requirements. This flexibility aligns with HIPAA's emphasis on risk management and the need for adaptive security measures. |
| Unified Security Framework | SASE provides a unified and integrated security framework, simplifying compliance audits for healthcare organizations. This aids in demonstrating adherence to HIPAA requirements by offering a consolidated view of security policies, access controls, and data protection measures. |
| Remote Access Security | With the increasing adoption of telehealth and remote work in the healthcare industry, SASE ensures secure remote access to healthcare systems and ePHI. This supports HIPAA compliance by extending robust security measures to off-premises environments. |
¶ HIPAA Compliance Data in Exium SASE Platform
Note that for the HIPAA Compliance Data, you need to have the Exium SASE/ XDR agent (same unified agent) installed on the endpoints such as computers, servers, and virtual machines etc. To view your HIPAA Compliance status, follow the steps below:
- Navigate to the MSP admin console -> Client Workspace
- Click on “XDR” in the left menu bar → Login → copy the password (username is the same as the workspace name)
- Click on Dashboards → Login with the credentials from the previous step
- Click on “HIPPA” as shown on the screenshot below
A sample data for HIPAA compliance in Exium's SASE platform is provided in the graphs below.
The Most common alerts & Top 10 requirements seen in Exium platform for this sample data are summarized below:
|
Requirement |
What it is about? |
|---|---|
| 164.312.b | Standard: Audit controls. Implement hardware, software, and/or procedural mechanisms that record and examine activity in information systems that contain or use electronic protected health information. |
| 164.312.c.1 | Standard: Integrity. Implement policies and procedures to protect electronic protected health information from improper alteration or destruction. |
| 164.312.c.2 | Implementation specification: Mechanism to authenticate electronic protected health information (Addressable). Implement electronic mechanisms to corroborate that electronic protected health information has not been altered or destroyed in an unauthorized manner. |
| 164.312.a.2.IV | Encryption and decryption (Addressable). Implement a mechanism to encrypt and decrypt electronic protected health information. |
| 164.312.e.1 | Standard: Transmission security. Implement technical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to electronic protected health information that is being transmitted over an electronic communications network. |
| 164.312.e.2.(i) | Integrity controls (Addressable). Implement security measures to ensure that electronically transmitted electronic protected health information is not improperly modified without detection until disposed of. |
| 164.312.e.2.(ii) | Encryption (Addressable). Implement a mechanism to encrypt electronic protected health information whenever deemed appropriate. |
| 164.312.a.2.(i) | Unique user identification (Required). Assign a unique name and/or number for identifying and tracking user identity. |
| 164.312.a.2.(ii) | Emergency access procedure (Required). Establish (and implement as needed) procedures for obtaining necessary electronic protected health information during an emergency. |
| 164.312.a.1 | Standard: Access control. Implement technical policies and procedures for electronic information systems that maintain electronic protected health information to allow access only to those persons or software programs that have been granted access rights as specified in § 164.308(a)(4). |
The HIPAA requirements evolution over time and requirements distribution by agent are provided in the graphs below.
¶ Conclusion
SASE offers healthcare organizations a modern and comprehensive solution to achieve and maintain HIPAA compliance. By integrating advanced security measures, dynamic access controls, and scalable architecture, SASE assists in safeguarding patient information, reducing the risk of data breaches, and demonstrating a commitment to maintaining the highest standards of healthcare data protection.