Wolfram support suggested this workaround. See Properties->

OpenSQLConnection[
 JDBC["MySQL(Connector/J)", "ip and name of remote database"], 
 "Version" -> 3.1, "Catalog" -> Automatic, "Description" -> None, 
 "autoReconnect" -> True, "Password" -> xxx", 
 "Properties" -> {"useSSL" -> "False"}, "ReadOnly" -> Automatic, "RelativePath" -> False,
  "TransactionIsolationLevel" -> Automatic, 
 "UseConnectionPool" -> Automatic, "Username" -> "xxx", 
 "Timeout" -> 1000]

It works! The developers will implement the useSSL->True in the next version.