remote mySQL secure?

[soundkobo]

Hello. After successfully whitelisting the relevant IP and setting up a site that connects to my databases remotely, I stared wondering about security.

Is the connection to the remote MySQL server secure?

thanks

[felgall]

It can only be accessed from the local server and from the computers at the IP addresses on the whitelist. Assuming that you only whitelisted one IP address and your computer has a static IP address for your connection to the internet then the database will only be accessible from the server and from your computer.

If you have a dynamic IP address then you either need to change the IP address that is whitelisted every time your ISP changes the IP address you are on OR you need to whitelist their entire IP address range in which case any other customer of that ISP potentially has access to the database (of course they would still need the userid and password along with the database name in order to connect to it.

[gbateson]

I see. Thanks for that.

I wonder if the connection between an external machine (on a static IP address that is on the whitelist) and the MySQL server is encrypted? If it isn't, that is to say if the username and password are sent unencrypted, in plain text, then there would be a danger of them being intercepted and misused. Should we be worried about that?

[soundkobo]

Thanks gbateson! That's exactly what I was wondering about.. I get the access restriction, whitelist issue. I'm concerned about people snooping in on routers along the way. Anyone have any insight into how to encrypt the transmissions from the remote database? (SSL, etc?)

[badreligion]

You could always use an SSH proxy. Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about, or post that and hope that I set my profile to email me...I will try to explain.