Secure Sybase DB connection

Hi Everyone, I am relatively new to php. I am currently developing a php 4.x application running on an apache 1.3.x web server which connects to a remote sybase SQL ASE 12 server. My main concern is with the command sybase_connect ("server", "username","password") on the web server. Obviously, the password field is in clear text. In the event of a possible security compromise of the web server (be it through bugs in the O/S, php code or apache server), a hacker may change file permissions and gain access to the php file containing the database password. One machine compromised is bad enough but I would like to protect the integrity of the database server. Is there a way to set up some kind of encryption to protect the database password? Thanks. Dennis