The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the most important data protection regulation for healthcare providers in the USA. It covers health insurers, clinics, hospitals, private practices, and developers of health apps, care settings, and pharmacies.

If you handle patient records, you need to be HIPAA-compliant. For your convenience, we have created a handy HIPAA compliance checklist for covered organizations. However, this blog looks at another critical HIPAA-related issue: the different types of violations and the penalties for breaching HIPAA rules.

Violations matter. Poor compliance causes customers to lose trust in your data protection policies. It’s only a matter of time before patients move their business elsewhere. Regulators can also issue significant financial penalties or even jail offenders in the most extreme cases.

This makes protecting sensitive data a critical task for health companies and their partners. So let’s explore the issue in-depth and explain everything you need to know about HIPAA violations.

What qualifies as a HIPAA Violation?

Before talking about HIPAA penalties, we need a clear understanding of what exactly constitutes a HIPAA violation. Fortunately, the legal definition of a violation is extremely clear.

HIPAA violations take place when either a covered entity (CE) or a business associate (BA) of a covered entity breach HIPAA Security, Private, or Breach Notification Rules.

HIPAA has three main rules. Here is a quick summary of what you need to know about them:

• The HIPAA Privacy Rule sets out protections for private health data. CEs must keep data confidential and prevent unauthorized disclosure. They must also make health records available if patients desire.

• The HIPAA Security Rule states that healthcare organizations must keep patient records secure. This includes physical, administrative, and electronic safeguards. You could see this rule as putting the privacy rule into practice.

• The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule requires CEs to inform patients about any actual or potential data breaches. Notification must occur within 60 days of the breach.

Covered entities must become familiar with these rules when creating a compliance strategy. If you suffer a penalty, ignorance of HIPAA guidelines is not a valid defense. Covered entities must be aware of their responsibilities under the law.

Business associates, third parties your company uses also need to be part of compliance strategies. If partners can access your network assets, they could potentially cause a data breach.

Deliberate versus accidental violations

The first thing to note is that violating HIPAA can be deliberate or accidental. Covered entities need policies to cover both types of violations.

Deliberate breaches could include nurses passing the health records of a celebrity to media contacts or selling records on the Dark Web. But they also extend to simply sharing patient data without the consent of the individual concerned. In these cases, penalties tend to be severe.

Deliberate breaches also include offenses where organizations fail to act when they should do so. For instance, companies may refuse to issue breach notifications to customers within the required 60-day limit.

Company policies that clash with HIPAA rules are often deemed deliberate breaches if regulators decide that the covered entity knew about the issue and was able to remove the conflict.

Accidental breaches of HIPAA rules carry less severe penalties. They could include the absence of encryption on mobile devices or failure to train staff in cybersecurity practices.

For example, physicians could click on phishing links disguised as communications from pharmaceutical partners. There is probably no deliberate or malicious breach here. But the covered entity would be liable due to poor security training and policies.

Broadly speaking, if companies fail to take action to conform to HIPAA rules, this will qualify as a breach. That’s why having a comprehensive HIPAA compliance strategy is essential.

Criminal versus civil violations

It’s also important to understand the difference between criminal and civil HIPAA breaches.

Criminal cases are mounted by the Department of Justice and are much less common than civil penalties. They deal with deliberate violations and can lead to prison sentences for individuals at the organizations involved. Offenses leading to criminal charges include:

• Wrongful disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI)

• Wrongful disclosure of PHI under false pretenses (e.g. seeking access to medical records of patients not under the care of a physician)

• Wrongful disclosure of PHI under false pretenses with malicious intent (to sell or otherwise benefit from stealing PHI)

Most of the time, you or your staff won’t risk criminal charges. Instead, the challenge is to minimize the risk of civil cases.

Civil cases may involve behavior that is deliberate, but not malicious. Instead, civil offenses tend to involve poor risk assessment processes or simply ignorance of what HIPAA requires.

In these cases, the OCR or Attorneys General will seek a financial penalty under the HIPAA enforcement rule. Civil violations are covered by four tiers, which we will look at in more detail below.

4 types of HIPAA violations

In most instances, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) receives complaints and decides whether organizations have violated HIPAA regulations. When the OCR deliberates, its regulators use a four-tier system to categorize potential violations.

The four tiers differ in terms of severity, with rising financial penalties. They also differ in terms of culpability. In some cases, organizations are not aware of HIPAA violations. In others, breaches are wilful and systematic.

The size of the financial penalty is related to various factors. Regulators consider:

• How long the violation has existed

• How many individuals are affected

• The value and amount of the data at risk

• Whether the organization willingly collaborates with OCR

• Whether the organization has a clean regulatory history

Tier 1 – Accidental violation

At this tier, organizations are not aware of HIPAA breaches. The organization also had no way to avoid the violation, even with complete adherence to HIPAA regulations. At this level, covered entities must show evidence of compliance. This proves that the breach could not be avoided.

Highest penalty: $100 per incident, with a limit of $50,000

Tier 2 – Aware of violation, but no remediation possible

At tier 2, organizations know about HIPAA violations before OCR is informed. In this category, staff should have been aware of the fault. But the organization could not avoid violating HIPAA rules, even while administering adequate levels of care. This level falls short of the definition of “wilful neglect.”

Highest penalty: $1,000 per incident, with a limit of $100,000

Tier 3 – Wilful neglect with remediation

At tier 3, organizations commit “wilful neglect”. This means they were aware of the violation. the covered entity could have taken action to remedy the breach but failed to do so. However, there is a caveat here. Tier 3 penalties are lower because the organization involved has taken action to remediate the issue.

Highest penalty: $10,000 per incident, with a limit of $250,000

Tier 4 – Wilful neglect without remediation

At tier 4, organizations are also guilty of “wilful neglect”. The violation was known and the organization failed to take remedial action. Breaches in this category could continue for months or years, with serious consequences for patient welfare and data protection. For these reasons, Tier 4 penalties are far higher than other categories.

Highest penalty: $50,000 per incident, with a limit of $1.5 million

The consequences of a HIPAA violation

According to US law, if a covered entity breaks the HIPAA regulations, it may face a penalty of up to $50,000 and up to one-year imprisonment. The actual consequences depend on the type and severity of the HIPAA violation, and whether they were committed by a healthcare employee or an employer, i.e., covered entities.

There are two types of violations: civil and criminal. Each category has tiers to determine penalties for a specific breach.

Civil HIPAA penalties

HIPAA violations committed without malicious intent fall into the category of civil penalties. What’s the most common reason for these violations? Most of the time, it’s because healthcare employees or covered entities don’t know the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Yet, unawareness or negligence of HIPAA standards is not an excuse for escaping a penalty.

Criminal HIPAA penalties

Intentional HIPAA violations, such as disclosing or selling personal health information, are a crime. The criminal penalties for these violations can be severe and restitution may be also paid to the victims. A covered entity that committed a HIPAA violation must settle it with OCR and state attorneys general.

The height of the criminal penalties depends on the following factors:

• the seriousness of HIPAA violations

• the length of time that the violation has been taking place

• the number of violations identified.

HIPAA is a Federal regulation. So you might assume that penalties are issued exclusively by the Federal Government. However, the actual situation is more complex. Covered entities should be familiar with all regulatory bodies in their specific business sector.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR)

To start with, the Office for Civil Rights processes most HIPAA violations and issues penalties. OCR is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and it has a general bias towards negotiation instead of penalizing organizations.

As a rule, before mandating penalties, OCR will issue technical assistance and monitor voluntary compliance agreements with covered entities. However, if breaches persist, OCR will launch civil cases to demand HIPAA violation penalties. This is particularly likely if covered entities have a previous history of repeat violations.

OCR has the power to launch civil proceedings. But it can also pass HIPAA cases to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to handle criminal violations. So a violation at the federal level can lead to jail time alongside large financial penalties.

State-level Attorneys General

HIPAA penalties may also be issued at a state level by Attorneys General. Attorneys General can use powers granted by the 2009 HITECH Act to launch lawsuits against organizations breaching HIPAA rules. These suits are civil cases, so they do not lead to prison sentences. But they can result in large financial penalties.

Additionally, HIPAA violations can stretch across state boundaries. In these situations, covered entities may face lawsuits from numerous Attorneys General. This multiplies the financial cost of non-compliance.

Internal penalties

Proactive organizations may also create policies to penalize staff members when they violate HIPAA regulations. This could be developed autonomously, or in collaboration with the Office for Civil Rights as part of compliance strategies.

Internal penalties tend to range in severity and seek to deter unsafe behavior when handling patient data. They are an important data security measure, especially when deployed with mandatory security training.

How can NordLayer solutions mitigate HIPAA risks?

Violating HIPAA suggests that your data protection measures are below the standard needed in today’s digital marketplace. That’s why organizations need modern security solutions that easily adapt to the complexities of today’s hybrid working environments and HIPAA rules. All locations, users, devices, apps, and data must have the same advanced level of protection. 

With Nordlayer’s solutions, you can secure access to sensitive information, prevents reputational, legal, and financial damage, and helps achieve HIPAA compliance.  Whatever area of healthcare you work in, Nordlayer is ready to help you succeed. Get in touch and discuss your options today.

Board of Innovation is a global innovation firm imagining tomorrow’s products, services, and businesses – and creating them today. The company joins forces with the world’s most ambitious businesses to make what life needs next.

The challenge

Trust over control within client confidentiality

The company culture at Board of Innovation is based on trust and employee enablement. These are critical elements for a creative industry. To succeed, the company is remote-first, and collaboration with freelancers and consultants of different backgrounds supplements full-time employees to generate new-of-the-kind products and services.

Yet, with a dynamic network of company innovators, consultants who move to client facilities, and third-party partners, IT managers face many challenges maintaining high levels of security that don’t interfere with team workflow.

Board of Innovation works with high-profile companies and industry leaders. High traffic of changing projects, collaborators, and partners also requires precise supervision to mitigate the risks.

Since employees are unrestricted with their choices of how they want to work, self-awareness of the entire organization must be on board to achieve security goals. But how does one define the proper data protection standards and make security implicit yet not dominant? It’s a tough and subtle challenge for the IT manager to tackle.

The solution

Depicting minimums of must-security

With evaluation of team setup, work environments, and the need for flexibility, a VPN solution was the most straightforward tool for Board of Innovation. It enables many different security protocols defined in the company. One of the policies is establishing a safe connection to the company network — this is where NordLayer comes into play.

A newly assigned IT manager started by reviewing the then-current cybersecurity strategy applied in the organization. Deployed by the previous responsible manager, Board of Innovation already had an ongoing NordLayer subscription. Yet, it needed a strategy that fits company culture to its benefit.

So what needed to be added to create a sound cybersecurity strategy that works?

The company has a secure network access solution in place. VPN is a mandatory factor of encrypted connection, and every organization member has to familiarize themselves and agree to data protection policies.

Board of Innovation follows a streamlined approach to managing its workforce — company policies define access levels to internal data. To put policies into force, corporate devices became a connecting point for every user with access to company resources.

Having the tools that fulfill internal and client data security requirements relieves the security manager from dependency on employees. And having those corporate devices set up and readily distributed to the hands of the workforce is half the job done.

Users have to launch VPN once connecting to untrusted networks wherever and whenever they work, and the admin can supervise the whole process if the rules are followed.

Why choose NordLayer

Creative freedom and trust are the foundation of the Board of Innovation culture. Thus, any tools and solutions used to keep up with the security requirements must be convenient and simple, enabling and not disrupting the workers.

The organization decided to keep the NordLayer solution due to its user-friendliness. Moreover, the well-known service provider has to sustain being a reputable vendor of a safe and efficient solution.

Role and endpoint management leaves more space for protecting digital company assets by enforcing authenticated user identities. More granular network access segmentation enables careful supervision over the organization members. 

How NordLayer enables data security on different network layers

The outcome

Streamlined consistency aligned with internal policies 

Now, Board of Innovation has all workforce onboarded to the NordLayer solution. The solution present in every corporate device and combined with two-factor authentication makes it easier for the IT manager to ensure policies are up and running.

The remote network access solution enables the organization to collaborate with various clients, partners, and freelancers. Managing access to internal resources and project information creates barriers to stopping data leaks and breaches. And importantly, security policies don’t overcome and interrupt innovators’ creativity and workflow.

All that is left for the IT manager is to distribute access and privileges to internal resources according to the company policies and check that everyone is on board with the process. 

Pro cybersecurity tips

Sharing best practices is what helps businesses of any industry innovate in their own way of security. Creating a strategy for protecting the company network and securing information of different levels can be based on the most unconventional and unexpected advice. Thus, this time just like every time, we asked Mehdi Lahmamsi Pinel, the Global Operations & IT Manager at Board of Innovation, to share his professional insights on business cybersecurity:

NordLayer solution secures and enables every way of working, even if you want to prioritize trust and flexibility. The application, running in the background, simply does its job encrypting connections and segmenting the teams wherever the employees are. They can combine organization-provided devices with personal endpoints securely enabling BYOD policy within the company and IT managers can attend to their work stress-free. Sounds good? Reach out to learn more about NordLayer possibilities.

Much like seasonal flu, cyber threats are constantly evolving every year. While the coronavirus curve has been, for the most part, flattened and more enterprises opened up their offices for on-premise employees, the number of cyberattacks continues to grow. Even last year, cyberattacks increased by 38% in 2022, compared to 2021.

Even without covid as a catalyst, businesses are still becoming more digital, leading to increased attacks. In this environment, cybersecurity is a real challenge, and both business managers and network administrators have a real head-scratcher on their hands. Here are our predictions on the cybersecurity trends for this year.

Cybersecurity trends for 2023

Cybersecurity is no longer an IT manager’s concern. It’s something that comes into play when making key business decisions. Data breaches can turn the business upside down with penalties and loss of customer trust. It’s a challenge that can come from outside and inside with improperly configured networks.

As digital transformation is becoming more prevalent among businesses, so does the increase of various threats. Here are the eight main cybersecurity trends shaping this year’s digital environment.

Soon after OpenAI launched the intelligent chatbot ChatGPT, it was quickly revealed that it could do more than just form responses across many knowledge domains. Cybercriminals have already started to use this tool for building hacking tools, while scammers are gathering knowledge to build similar chatbots to use for impersonation.

While the publicly available ChatGPT-coded tools are quite rudimentary, it seems that it’s only a matter of time before hackers can turn the AI to their advantage. In general, the least of its contributions is that it lowers the entry threshold by being a huge help for novice malware developers. Even without coding assistance, it helps to write genuine-sounding phishing emails for hackers.

Although ChatGPT has various safeguards to prevent it from being used for exploitation, this is something that businesses should keep in mind. Artificial intelligence is going mainstream which levels the playing field for hackers and can put increased pressure on your cybersecurity plan.

Remote and hybrid employees risks

After the pandemic, businesses have settled with hybrid workforce models. In some cases, these models are relics of a period when the Covid-19 outbreak forced the digital transition. As this development had to happen very quickly and not interrupt business operations, this also meant that the security measures weren’t always without gaps.

This blend of employees working on-premises, remote working contractors, and a wide variety of their used company-issued and personal devices makes it a colossal job to secure everything. For IT administrators, the attack surface is too huge to oversee everything that is happening. As data breach cases pile up, we’ll likely continue to see an increased interest in securing business networks and balancing them with workplace flexibility.

Automation of cybersecurity

As hackers themselves are starting to leverage AI for their exploits, it’s only natural that businesses should keep up. Data sources multiply exponentially, so automation is necessary to crunch numbers before humans can analyze them. This allows companies to get the best of both worlds and dramatically improve their cybersecurity status.

Various sources show that successful AI pairings can extend network visibility by up to 35%. These developments clearly show that AI has the potential to be a key component when transforming network security operations. Leveraging machine learning moves organizations forward and builds more sophisticated systems to withstand the most complex online threats.

International state-sponsored attacks

While state-sanctioned cyberattacks are nothing new, the ongoing war in Ukraine marked a turning point for a steep increase. Russia remains largely isolated from the rest of the Western world, and 64% of Russian hacking was directed directly at Ukraine. These are huge numbers, even without factoring in hacking attempts at their allies. Cyber espionage is escalating in other areas as the US recently shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon.

As all this is happening, a business can easily be caught in the crossfire. This makes private companies and critical infrastructure organizations prime targets for credential theft, vulnerability exploitation, or ransomware. In such a climate, not having a cybersecurity plan in place is a severe liability, and businesses will likely take action to address IT security shortcomings.

Building a security-aware culture

According to Verizon, 85% of breaches involve a human element, so investing in cybersecurity technologies but skimping on the workforce is missing the forest for the trees. In today’s climate, thinking that cybersecurity risks are a problem for the IT department can blow up when you least expect it. Every single employee must be aware of potential cyber risks and know how to deal with them.

In some cases, this may require building transparent information security policies. In others, security awareness training may be necessary. Security culture building will become a key factor in many organizations this year. As social engineering attack numbers aren’t subsiding, there’s no other way to combat these threats than through company culture.

Data breaches will continue to increase

Data breaches increase yearly more than they did the previous year, and this year will be no exception. Data is still one of the most valuable assets, and organizations still leave plenty of room for attackers to exploit gaps in the fence. Building a firm infrastructure isn’t cheap or simple, either, so most companies exist hoping they won’t be the next target.

This said prevention is much more effective (and cheaper) than settlements, lawsuits, and fines for data security violations. Yet, many businesses still rely on legacy software without any risk management policy and procedure updates. We can expect that more businesses will be caught off guard this year while others will try to learn from others’ mistakes rather than their own.

Global recession serves as a catalyst for hackers

As many experts are warning about economic downturns, this can catalyze cybercrime. Most cyberattacks are financially backed, so as the economy shrinks due to global geopolitical events like Russia’s war in Ukraine, this sends a shockwave throughout all spheres of life. Hacking, therefore, can become a lucrative option if a person has the skills and no other options to earn a living wage.

Hackers-for-hire, therefore, may emerge in search of easy money, which can have various devastating consequences for companies. While some might perform penetration tests or collect bug bounties, others may not be so ethical. This should be considered, especially in Europe, considering its geopolitical tensions.

Credential stealing will continue to rise

Various reports show that mobile device vulnerabilities targeting credentials are on the rise. Hackers know that employees use their IoT devices to access the company network. So these devices are user-managed. They tend to have quite more vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit.

What also helps hackers is that most systems are still protected with only passwords. It’s especially easy to crack such a setup when employees reuse the same passwords. A move towards passwordless or hardware identity tokens is happening slowly. This proves to be a lucrative opportunity for thieves. Some experts claim that we’ll also see more second-factor authentication exploits via SMS and push-based multi-factor authentication solutions this year.

Tips on how to prepare your business for 2023

To prepare for this year, companies should start with budgeting. The amount spent on cybersecurity in 2021 and 2022 should be a benchmark for the 2023 budget. It should also adjust according to how many significant changes occurred in the organization and the cybersecurity landscape.

Adjusting the cybersecurity budget according to your company size is also common. A rule of thumb is to allocate at least 10-20% of your total budget. Revising the budgeting plan as you go is always a good idea. Cybersecurity threats and landscape can change a lot throughout the year, so staying flexible is one of the methods to stay ahead of the curve.

How can NordLayer help to protect your business in 2023?

Most recent developments in cyberspace are relevant to every business as most of them will be affected by them. Organizations need trustworthy allies to deter cyber threats as the threats keep piling up.

A modern remote network access solution like NordLayer is developed to integrate threat, network, and security management centrally to provide an explicit range of issue-targeted features. Especially with the help of a convenient design that combines cloud-based platforms, data privacy protection, and access control security strategies. 

NordLayer covers security with a centralized control interface and product integration to existing infrastructure. It provides secure remote access solutions for hybrid environments and implements zero trust for distributed workforces conveying everything to the cloud environment.

Achieve a multilayered security protection network and data environment — secure your business in 2023 with NordLayer — reach out to talk more.