HIPAA compliance needs the development of different standards for safeguarding (e-PHI) or information that is electronically protected. Despite the fact that as per HIPAA observance, there does not exist a regulation that clearly requires penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, nevertheless, reviewing sensitive patient data and protecting patient data along with health care transactions made electronically are tasks that are highly essential. These tasks help in understanding security risks that need to be dealt with by the companies in the healthcare sector. Hence, there is no need for risk analysis in complying with HIPAA but it requires the proper checking of security controls.
Important Procedures for Examining Security Controls
There are two important procedures for examining security controls and they are penetration testing and vulnerability scanning. HIPAA penetration testing is a major manual procedure. This is a procedure that uses any vulnerabilities identified in a network for gaining access to the network. On the other hand, vulnerability scanning is basically an automated procedure used for identifying all kinds of security threats or holes in a network.
Why is Risk Assessment Important for Health-Care Businesses?
One of the most important standards of being HIPAA compliant for healthcare companies is conducting HIPAA risk assessment of their respective transactions made electronically. From the technical point of view, it is important for healthcare industries to have the ability to show that their systems are sufficiently secured to be able to comply with HIPAA. However, the truth is that majority of these companies are not into proper technical and non-technical testing. This is the main reason why fully managed and experienced security services have an important role to play in providing the level of vulnerability testing and penetration required for sensitive patient data protection and health care transactions made electronically.
Evaluation- The Main Requirement of HIPAA
With an increase in hacking attacks across the industry, it would be difficult to carry out tasks like data protection and safeguard electronic transactions in the healthcare industry. Therefore, it is important to go for HIPAA penetration testing. As per security experts, it is an obligatory requirement to perform penetration tests annually and vulnerability tests quarterly in the healthcare industry. For the ones who wonder about the difference between penetration tests and vulnerability tests, these are two different procedures that guarantee the security and the safety of all the networks and transactions.
A vulnerability test is like a burglar checking the windows and the doors of a house to ensure that they are completely locked. On the other hand, a penetration test starts only when a burglar gets hold of a door or a window that is open and makes an easy entry into the property. This test can even begin when a burglar thinks of breaking a sealed or locked door or window only for the sake of entering the property. Penetration testing helps in stimulating the potential attack on the application or network environment of a company.
HIPAA pen testing is one of the best ways of testing your very own environment. This is due to the fact that this procedure goes beyond the automatic vulnerability checking. This is one method that looks for all kinds of security issues and risks to health care transactions made electronically and the area of safeguarding the sensitive data of patients.
