As the industry grapples with recent healthcare events, the need for robust and reliable assurance systems has never been more critical. The biggest question looms: What can we do to ensure data protection with the highest security measures? While there is no single, straightforward answer, HITRUST stands at the forefront of this effort, dedicated to providing the highest level of security assurance through its relevant and reliable certifications.

The core of HITRUST certification: Relevance and reliability

HITRUST is built on the dual principles of relevance and reliability, ensuring that organizations can trust the systems in place to protect their data.

The HITRUST Assurance Program is designed to address the dynamic nature of cybersecurity threats. The foundation of this program lies in its relevance — ensuring that the right controls are in place to address current threats — and reliability — providing confidence that these controls are effective and consistently applied. This dual focus is encapsulated in the formula Relevance x Reliability = Trust. Without both elements, true trust cannot be achieved.

To maintain relevance, HITRUST continuously updates its certification system, integrating over 50 standards and frameworks. This process includes regular analysis of current threat data, making the HITRUST framework cyber threat adaptive. HITRUST ensures that its offerings represent the best possible protection against the ever-changing threat landscape. The recent versions of the HITRUST CSF address all of the addressable techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) included in the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.

Reliability is achieved through a rigorous program that emphasizes transparency, consistency, accuracy, integrity, and efficiency. HITRUST’s ecosystem is built to ensure the trustworthiness of data, scoring, and resultant certifications. The results speak for themselves: over the past two years, less than 1% of organizations with a HITRUST certification have reported security breaches to HITRUST.

The role of assurance in risk management: Providing confidence

HITRUST certifications provide a confidence level around risk management. While no system can be 100% secure, assurance systems along with other tools such as cyber insurance, third-party risk management, and disaster recovery programs, work together to reduce or manage risks to acceptable levels.

Assurance also plays a vital role in enhancing security postures. HITRUST emphasizes the importance of maintaining and improving security assurance methods while continuously learning from events to strengthen responses for an ever-changing risk landscape — all important to its mission of keeping every certification relevant and reliable.

The path forward: Learning and improving

The recent healthcare events underscore the importance of continuous improvement and learning. HITRUST is committed to working with the industry to learn from each event and to continue focusing on preventing similar incidents in the future. This commitment to learning and improvement is why many industry leaders trust HITRUST to provide the necessary protections. HITRUST remains dedicated to delivering the best possible assurance systems to help organizations navigate the complex cybersecurity landscape.

For a deeper dive, listen to our special podcast episode, “Rebuilding Trust After The Latest Breach,” from Trust vs. In this episode, Steve Perkins (Chief Marketing Officer, HITRUST) joins hosts Robert Booker (Chief Strategy Officer, HITRUST) and Jeremy Huval (Chief Innovation Officer, HITRUST) to discuss the lessons learned from the latest breach and the importance of security assurance moving forward.