HEALTHTECH AND ITS DATA
Information is everything in today's society. Governments use information as a competitive and even strategic advantage, every person relies on information to make decisions, and criminals also profit from it. But when we talk about information related to people's health or any medical aspect of their lives, the stakes become far more sensitive. StartUps dedicated to health-related services carry a critical responsibility toward their customers, consumers, business partners, and regulators alike. It matters everywhere in the world.
What could go wrong?
People's medical information helps healthcare professionals deliver more accurate diagnoses; it can also be used to build statistics, predict trends, organize treatment tracking, and provide many other benefits. Unfortunately, this same information can be used in complicated and even dangerous ways if it falls into the wrong hands.
In the United States, for example, there is HIPAA, and there are certifications such as HITRUST specialized in protecting what is considered PHI (Protected Health Information). The risks associated with the disclosure of medical information can cause severe harm not only to people's reputations; in some cases it can even put their lives at risk.
Let's look at some examples of associated risks:
- Theft of sensitive data for extortion.
- Malfunction of medical devices caused by cyberattacks.
- Tampering with mobile apps publicly available in the Apple and Google stores.
- Abuse of the web services those mobile apps connect to.
- Unauthorized access to medical information in web applications.
- Loss of consultation appointments or scheduling of medical procedures.
- Manipulation of information used to prescribe medical treatments.
- Cybersecurity breaches that affect the privacy or data of people in your country or other regions.
- Media scandals or lawsuits caused by cybersecurity breaches.
Healthtechs share many characteristics with startups, precisely because of their technology (Tech) component, and with it they inherit the same risks as StartUps, including in some cases aspects of IoT (Internet of Things). On top of that we add some extra safeguards as mentioned above, but they remain companies built on innovation that pursue accelerated growth. The ideal balance for a healthtech is the equilibrium between what a startup seeks (fast growth) and the cybersecurity that guarantees business continuity.
To achieve this, it is critical to keep privacy and data protection in mind.
Business continuity
We won't go into business continuity or disaster recovery plans here (each topic deserves a dedicated article), but it is important to mention a few points that are critically important for any company providing health-related services.
When security testing is performed for HIPAA compliance, for example, a methodology must be used that differs from the one applied in other cases, primarily because of the potential access to protected health information (PHI) or personally identifiable information (PII).
Consider the following scenario:
If a person with access to a platform can, in some way (legitimate or illegitimate), view the medical records of other people, this data exposure (intentional or unintentional) could be used to profit or to harm someone else, which represents a violation of the privacy or protection of the information held in custody by the platform.
There is a characteristic of personal information that is very important to keep in mind when building a platform:
Personal information belongs to people. This means that any application or platform that stores this information is acting as a custodian of people's property, and it cannot share or trade this information without the owner's authorization.
A healthtech may take great care when building its products or services, but how do you guarantee this to your users, customers, or business partners?
This is where the measures you can take to protect your company's continuity come in:
- Perform an application certification process based on penetration testing — also known as "Pentest" or "Ethical Hacking" — carried out with a methodology focused on the healthcare sector and performed by people trained in HIPAA and data protection.
- Maintain policies, standards, and procedures aligned with respected industry frameworks such as HIPAA, HITRUST, NIST CSF, ISO 2700X, and others, to give external auditors from clients or business partners peace of mind.
- Run security awareness training that includes safeguards for protecting medical or personal information.
- Proactive validation exercises such as Red Team campaigns help simulate what would happen in a real attack. It's like running a fire drill so you know how to react if it actually happens.
- Performing periodic security reviews can generate a significant number of tasks to resolve (risks), and without a proper vulnerability management process, this could snowball into something hard to control.
- Healthtechs in particular are agile companies that require agile solutions to their problems, and there are automation trends such as DevSecOps that help reduce costs through automated security reviews.
- Especially for businesses based on web and/or mobile applications, it is important to obtain a certification to build trust with users, customers, or business partners.
Traditional consulting models tend to be expensive, slow, and complicated because they involve manually managed processes. Startups should look for more agile solutions that allow them to meet all requirements as quickly and simply as possible. Companies like WhiteJaguars offer services built precisely for these scenarios, from penetration testing and automated vulnerability management based on platforms built for DevSecOps, to application certification and training programs, and much more.
WhiteJaguars is aligned with HIPAA
Many StartUps in the US, UK, Canada, and Silicon Valley already use WhiteJaguars' services to protect their future, meet regulations, and close commercial agreements quickly and easily. Our team is continuously trained in frameworks and regulations because our reports are accepted as evidence for HIPAA, PCI-DSS, FISMA, SOC 2, and others.
Our healthtech security services
We protect healthtechs and digital health companies that safeguard clinical records and sensitive medical information. Working to standards such as HIPAA, HITRUST, and ISO 27001, we ensure patient data is handled in line with regulatory and partner compliance requirements across the US, UK, and Canada.
Healthtechs must address ransomware, strict privacy regulation, and constantly evolving threats to the healthcare sector. We secure telemedicine platforms, connected devices, and integrations with hospital systems under frameworks like HIPAA, HITECH, and the UK GDPR, preserving the confidentiality and integrity of health information.
Under HIPAA, organizations handling PHI must conduct regular security risk assessments and implement technical safeguards including encryption, access controls, and audit logging. WhiteJaguars delivers security testing and compliance documentation that satisfies these requirements for businesses operating in the US, UK, and Canada, supporting audit readiness and business partner due diligence.