title: Secure ODBC network connection to an MS Access database
body: <p>Pardon my outrageous silliness, I don't know if this is even possible.</p>
  
  <p>Here's the situation.</p>
  
  <p>There is an MS Access "database" (yes, I know, believe me, I know) which I'll need to SELECT, UPDATE and INSERT to from a remote location. The catch is that this needs to happen securely.</p>
  
  <p>I have complete control over the remote machine which hosts the MS Access file, so I can put in drivers and software as I please. The server is Microsoft Windows Server 2003.</p>
  
  <p>The approach that I had intended to take was to host a PHP script on an HTTPS server (using either Apache or IIS, doesn't matter), send XML to the PHP script which would then do its thing on the MS Access database and send XML results back. However, due to time restraints, I'm trying to figure out if I can connect directly through ODBC in a secure manner, and have it speak to an MS Access database.</p>
  
  <p>It's my understanding that ODBC is not exactly famous for being secure, but that there are ODBC drivers that support encrypted connections, or that I can somehow tunnel the ODBC connection through SSL. However, all the information I have found so far relies on the database being Microsoft SQL.</p>
  
  <p>In particular I'm interested if there are ways to SSL-ify ODBC connections without regard to the underlying database. I could probably figure that out on a Unix-clone by myself, but the host is a Windows Server 2003 in which case, I don't know how to proceed.</p>
  
  <p>Is this possible at all? Any information highly appreciated!</p>