HIPAA
Why Your Customers Need To Adopt A HIPAA MIND-SET
Paul Tracey ’ s Mission To Make HIPAA The Standard Across All Industries
WITH PAUL TRACEY , FOUNDER AND CEO OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES
Every morning , when Paul Tracey , founder and CEO of Innovative Technologies , wakes up , he ’ s greeted with a new list of cybersecurity threats .
The morning we spoke , one of Tracey ’ s clients had an employee who downloaded a document at their home , uploaded it to their Google Drive , then downloaded it again when they got to work . Loaded with malware , the document put the client ’ s company in danger . Fortunately , because of the procedures Tracey had in place , his team discovered the document immediately and ended that threat within 35 seconds from when it started . But for many companies that don ’ t have a cybersecurity plan in place , this wouldn ’ t have ended so well .
Tracey realized early in his IT career that companies were grossly undereducated about and unprepared for cyberthreats . Therefore , for over a decade , Tracey has been on a mission to educate SMB owners whose livelihoods are at risk by what they don ’ t know about IT and cybersecurity threats . The author of Delete the Hackers Playbook and co-author of Cyberstorm ( released in 2022 ), he started his own company after witnessing a large hospital pay hefty fines when their lax security caused a major breach . Realizing that “ cybersecurity inequity is highly problematic ,” Tracey dedicated himself to fighting cybercrime for the business owners who are the most vulnerable . Today , he helps businesses establish a company culture that supports safe , secure , and efficient IT .
The framework Tracey uses to protect client data is based on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ( HIPAA ) Security Rule . “ While HIPAA was designed to protect the privacy of patient records , it is actually an excellent framework for any organization ’ s security plan ,” Tracey explains . “ It not only addresses technical measures needed to control the physical environment but also emphasizes the administrative processes necessary to secure data .”
Tracey ’ s idea to use HIPAA as a standard for all clients is even more relevant now that states have passed laws that mirror many of the core principles of HIPAA . But even if your state hasn ’ t passed laws yet , Tracey urges compliance , saying companies can ’ t afford to wait . “ It is crucial for organizations to implement tight safety protocols long before they are legally required to do so ,” Tracey says . “ We ’ re finding serious issues such as malwares that hijack your browser and do things in the background without being found . By the time a company calls for help , often their entire office is already filled with malware . You can ’ t afford to wait the 3 – 5 years it takes from proposal to enforcement — always follow stricter safety policies than the law dictates .”
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