What is HIPAA?
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is a U.S. federal law that establishes national standards for protecting the privacy and security of individually identifiable health information, known as Protected Health Information (PHI).
Also known as: HIPAA, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
HIPAA's Security Rule requires covered entities and their business associates to implement administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic PHI (ePHI). Technical safeguards include access controls, audit controls, integrity controls, and transmission security — with encryption listed as an addressable implementation specification for both data at rest and in transit.
The Privacy Rule governs who can access PHI and under what circumstances, establishing the "minimum necessary" standard — the healthcare equivalent of least privilege. Organizations must limit PHI access to only what is needed for a specific purpose. Violations carry severe penalties: fines range from $100 to $50,000 per violation (up to $1.5 million per year per violation category), and willful neglect can result in criminal charges.
In practice, HIPAA compliance demands that healthcare organizations carefully control how sensitive information is shared — both internally and with external partners. Emailing unencrypted credentials for healthcare systems, sharing database passwords in plaintext, or leaving access keys in persistent chat channels all create compliance risks. The requirement for encryption and access controls extends to every system that touches ePHI, including the credentials used to access those systems.
How Vaulted uses HIPAA
Vaulted provides a secure channel for sharing credentials and sensitive data in healthcare environments where HIPAA compliance is required. When IT teams need to share database credentials, system passwords, or API keys for ePHI-containing systems, Vaulted's client-side AES-256-GCM encryption ensures the data is encrypted before it leaves the browser. The zero-knowledge server never sees plaintext, self-destructing links enforce time-limited access consistent with the minimum necessary principle, and optional passphrase protection adds an additional access control layer.