Firebird has inherited a low security environment from Interbase. There is no means to encrypt connections and client authentication uses weak password based authentication. SSL/TLS could be used to improve both areas. Four levels of use are proposed, controlled through the configuration file and/or on a per user basis:

1. No SSL/TLS i.e. the current situation

2. SSL/TLS used to authenticate the server to the client and encrypt the subsequent connection.This is the typical https mode of use and makes use of X.509 certificate based authentication. A PKI is required. However, this does not have to be a paid for service and in most cases a local PKI based on OpenSSL should suffice.

3. SSL/TLS is additionally used to authenticate a client to the server. The client certificate must be signed by a Certification Authority recognised by the client.

4. In addition to authenticating the client, the common name component of the client certificate is used as the "username" and no password is required. This provides strong certificate based authentication of the client.

Most, if not all, of the above functionality already exists in external libraries and is used in ways, similar to the above proposal, by projects such as Sendmail, Dovecot, MySQL, Apache, Racoon, etc.