---
title: "HIPAA Compliance"
description: "How Alastor InfoSec supports HIPAA compliance for protected health information — technical safeguards, breach notification, and continuous security testing evidence."
keywords:
  - HIPAA compliance
  - protected health information
  - HIPAA security rule
  - HIPAA penetration testing
  - healthcare data security
---

# 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](/products/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](/features/mobile-app-security) and [Web App Security](/features/web-app-security) testing are frequently scoped specifically around PHI-handling applications and patient portals.

[Alastor Shield](/products/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-us) about continuous HIPAA-aligned testing for your healthcare platform.