A Zero Trust approach to HIPAA compliance
In Part 1 of this series, we covered the growing challenge of complying with the HIPAA security rule as the healthcare sector has become increasingly reliant on web-based applications.
Now, in Part 2, we'll dive deeper into a solution: Zero Trust security. With web browsers now becoming a key component of healthcare delivery, consumption, recording, and research, securing them is crucial for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance. This section will demonstrate how a Zero Trust security approach can provide the framework for effective, non-disruptive HIPAA compliance, specifically in the area of browser security.
A Zero Trust security strategy should assume that:
- All traffic – regardless of source – is untrustworthy, requiring websites, web apps, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms, and even email content to be treated as malicious
- Before any interaction with ePHI or PII applications or data, users must be authenticated and their access device should have a device security posture assessment with periodic re-authentication and re-assessment.
An effective Zero Trust security strategy for healthcare organizations must focus on application access, including comprehensive, scalable browser security, as follows:
- Comprehensive, scalable browser security
A Secure Enterprise Browser solution can protect healthcare organizations from web-borne malware. Such a preventative strategy can route some or even all web traffic through a cloud-based enterprise browser that can find and remove malware and phishing content before delivering safe content to the local browser.
Delivered through the cloud, this protection follows a user wherever their job takes them – in the office, at the hospital or clinic, or during an in-home visit. Comprehensive browser security ensures that malicious actors can not gain access to the end device by exploiting common browser vulnerabilities – even if the end browser has not been patched.
- Granular application access control
Evolving from network to browser security also requires that remote and distributed healthcare providers access only required applications and such applications are protected from threats. Zero trust access requires restricting user access to applications based on specific roles and tasks. For the least friction, it’s important to identify a clientless and agentless zero-trust application access solution.
Where possible, a secure application access solution should protect web usage with file upload and download controls, manage the use of copy and paste in browser forms, and as needed redact the most sensitive information presented in the web browser. Such capabilities can go a long way toward fulfilling HIPAA access control and data security requirements.
- Complete phishing protection
Imagine this: A seemingly harmless email from your CEO requesting urgent access to a patient file. Would you click it? Phishing attacks exploit human nature—our curiosity, our trust, our desire to be helpful—and a single click is all it takes to compromise an entire organization. This vulnerability is exactly why malicious actors are bombarding us with increasingly sophisticated phishing attempts across email, text messages, and even in-app messaging.
Meanwhile, the threat landscape has evolved. While more existing phishing-prevention training emphasizes obvious red flags like poor grammar or suspicious email addresses, artificial intelligence (AI), specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), has made it easier than ever to create highly convincing and customized phishing attacks.
LLMs can craft grammatically perfect emails at scale that mimic the tone of trusted sources, even personalizing messages to specific individuals using information readily available online. This removes many of the traditional indicators used to identify phishing attempts, making it harder for employees to discern real communications from malicious ones.
To combat this, healthcare organizations need to implement AI-powered security tools to analyze web content, identify and block phishing attempts, and track normal behavior versus abnormal behavior to detect and stop these attacks before they reach the end user. But technology alone is not enough. A multi-layered defense, combined with continuous user training that emphasizes critical thinking and contextual awareness, is crucial to ensure the security, reliability, and integrity of ePHI data in the face of increasingly sophisticated attacks.
- Accelerated incident response
The hard work of achieving HIPAA compliance may not be complete without proof in the form of reporting both configuration and progress in attainment both internally and potentially with external regulators. Like most organizations, healthcare organizations lack the needed visibility into user behavior to properly and thoroughly report on compliance. A Secure Enterprise Browser solution should include comprehensive logging, SIEM integration, and where possible a browsing forensics mechanism to track browser activity.
Such capabilities have the further benefit of accelerating security incident responses in the organization's SOC, while also retaining evidence of attack vectors and compromised accounts – ultimately supporting HIPAA audit controls.
- Independent guidance
The ongoing digital transformation of the healthcare industry and the unfortunate insecurity of ePHI data are forcing healthcare organizations to rethink how they meet and report HIPAA compliance. This new Product Applicability Guide (PAG) from the respected analyst firm Coalfire provides an independent review of how the Menlo Secure Enterprise Browser solution can help the healthcare industry attain HIPAA compliance in several very specific areas of the HIPAA Security Rule. Download a free copy of it now!
