HIPAA Compliance
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act governs how covered entities and business associates handle Protected Health Information (PHI) in the US — and its Security Rule specifically requires technical safeguards that most organizations treat as a documentation exercise rather than something they actually test.
What HIPAA's Security Rule Requires
- Technical safeguards — access controls, audit logging, integrity controls, and transmission security for PHI, wherever it lives.
- Risk analysis — an ongoing, documented process for identifying risks to PHI confidentiality, integrity, and availability, not a one-time exercise filed away after the initial assessment.
- Breach notification — HIPAA's Breach Notification Rule requires notifying affected individuals, and in significant cases HHS and the media, within specific timeframes tied to when the breach is discovered.
- Business associate agreements — any vendor touching PHI on your behalf needs a contractual agreement holding them to the same safeguards, and evidence that those safeguards actually exist.
Where HIPAA Audits Commonly Fail
Regulators and auditors increasingly expect evidence of active security testing against systems handling PHI — not just a risk analysis document, but proof that the technical safeguards it describes are regularly verified. A risk analysis that hasn't been updated since a major system change is one of the most common findings in HIPAA audits and OCR investigations.
Where Alastor InfoSec Fits
Alastor Pulse provides the continuous VAPT evidence that HIPAA's technical safeguards increasingly require in practice — testing against systems handling PHI on an ongoing basis, not a single engagement referenced in a risk analysis from a year ago. Our Mobile App Security and Web App Security testing are frequently scoped specifically around PHI-handling applications and patient portals.
Alastor Shield automates the documentation trail — risk analysis updates, access control evidence, and business associate agreement tracking — so a HIPAA audit or an OCR inquiry doesn't require reconstructing a year's worth of security activity from scratch.
Who Needs This
Healthcare providers, health tech platforms, insurers, and any business associate that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits PHI on behalf of a covered entity needs ongoing HIPAA technical safeguard evidence — a growing expectation among both regulators and enterprise healthcare customers doing vendor security reviews.
Talk to our team about continuous HIPAA-aligned testing for your healthcare platform.