When it comes to security, some just say 'zip it'

By Ellen Messmer, NetworkWorld.com, 11/03/03

The federal government's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has the medical and insurance industry focusing on ways to protect patient privacy, particularly when sending patient data over the Internet to business partners.

Covington, La.-based Gilsbar, a health benefits and life insurance company that has sold most of its 250,000 policies through professional organizations, has found the simplest way to get business partners encrypting data is to just give them the encryption.

"We send out 1,200 to 1,500 files monthly in reports to re-insurance companies, banks, associations and other clients," says Gene Knoblach, information systems manager. For years Gilsbar had been using PKWare's PKZip compression software to compress the files to more manageable size to send them in e-mail or in FTP. Customers that had the PKZIP reader could get files in compressed form and de-compress them.

With some of the complicated HIPAA rules going into effect in June, Gilsbar's staff spent time earlier this year mulling how to bring encryption into the mix to better protect customer information when sending it over the Internet. With the latest version of PKWare's PKZIP 6.0 supporting encryption, it seemed like a good choice for use with business partners.

"We run on the AS/400, and to find another tool would have been costly," said Knoblach. "So we simply upgraded to the new version of PKZIP, which has encryption built on top of the compression."

However, to get Gilsbar's business partners to buy into the PKZIP encryption process, especially when so many other encryption methods, such as PGP, are popular in sharing data, Gilsbar found it was necessary to build a campaign based on making the software free.

"We had to get them a license for PKZIP reader," said Knoblach. "We also set up a co-branded Web site with PKWare to download and decrypt the files."

The process is costing a few thousand dollars, a price Gilsbar considers reasonable to help comply with the HIPAA guidelines. Gilsbar also wants data coming back to the company to be encrypted as well

Convincing business partners to make the switch to a particular encryption method is not easy, and subsidizing the process is one way to build momentum, particularly when companies are striving for cost-savings even as they hear different technology demands being made, Knoblach notes.

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Comments

i want the trial base verson

Posted by: ramu.e on December 13, 2003 07:59 AM

Good for ya ther laddy..

Posted by: jack dempy on January 15, 2004 01:33 PM

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