title: How secure is authentication in mysql protocol?
body: <p>My users are using MS Access and ODBC connector to connect to my remote MySQL database. I wonder how secure this is, in the sense of possible password disclosure to 3rd party. Is the mysql protocol authentication safe to eavesdropping or even man-in-the-middle attacks? I would be quite happy with safety against eavesdropping. Note that my concern is only authentication, I'm not concerned about data disclosure.</p>
  
  <p>Please don't reply that I should use SSL. I know this would be ideal however the setup doesn't seem very simple. Anyway, I would like to know what is the safety level of plain mysql protocol.</p>