by Cesar Navas
March 6, 2024
Healthcare providers involved in the transmission of Protected Health Information (PHI) or Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI)must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security rules. As system configuration complexity increases, the organization’s struggle to meet hardening standards continues to rise. This report provides users with a simplistic view of HIPAA related configuration audit checks.
The Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA, Title II) required the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish national standards for the security of electronic health care information. The final rule adopting HIPAA standards for security was published in the Federal Register on February 20, 2003. The legislation specifies a series of administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for covered entities to use to assure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI. Each safeguard category consists of standards and implementation specifications.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. HITECH increases the scope of security and privacy protections for ePHI previously set forth by HIPAA. The HITECH Act also addresses liability and enforcement when violations or breaches occur.
This report can assist an organization in monitoring and improving its compliance with HIPAA configuration requirements. Analysts can use this report to further investigate configuration errors using the HIPAA related audit checks. This will in turn help the organization better protect itself from exploitation of network vulnerabilities, and potential intrusions, attacks, and data loss.
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Chapters:
- Executive Summary : This chapter contains three elements which provide a high level overview summarizing results outlined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security rules.
- Framework Result Summary - HIPAA: This chapter summarizes all the families outlined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security rules.
- Control Summary - HIPAA: This chapter provides compliance results for each control family within the compliance standard.
- Audit Check Type Summary - HIPAA: This chapter provides compliance results for hosts within the compliance standard.
- 164.306 Security standards: General rules. - HIPAA: The chapter contains four elements. The first is a table that provides details on each of the compliance controls for the compliance family group being referenced. The compliance control reference number is followed by a count, and compliance result for the compliance control. This element is followed by an iterator displaying the compliance reference, list of audit files used to identify the compliance concerns, and a detailed listing of each of the compliance items.
- 164.308 Administrative safeguards. - HIPAA: The chapter contains four elements. The first is a table that provides details on each of the compliance controls for the compliance family group being referenced. The compliance control reference number is followed by a count, and compliance result for the compliance control. This element is followed by an iterator displaying the compliance reference, list of audit files used to identify the compliance concerns, and a detailed listing of each of the compliance items.
- 164.312 Technical safeguards. - HIPAA: The chapter contains four elements. The first is a table that provides details on each of the compliance controls for the compliance family group being referenced. The compliance control reference number is followed by a count, and compliance result for the compliance control. This element is followed by an iterator displaying the compliance reference, list of audit files used to identify the compliance concerns, and a detailed listing of each of the compliance items.