diff --git a/src/_mssql.pyx b/src/_mssql.pyx
index 0749ce94..6067b5bd 100644
--- a/src/_mssql.pyx
+++ b/src/_mssql.pyx
@@ -539,7 +539,7 @@ cdef class MSSQLConnection:
         self.column_names = None
         self.column_types = None
 
-    def __init__(self, server="localhost", user="sa", password="",
+    def __init__(self, server="localhost", user=None, password=None,
             charset='UTF-8', database='', appname=None, port='1433', tds_version=None, conn_properties=None):
         log("_mssql.MSSQLConnection.__init__()")
 
@@ -564,15 +564,23 @@ cdef class MSSQLConnection:
         appname = appname or "pymssql=%s" % __full_version__
 
         # For Python 3, we need to convert unicode to byte strings
-        cdef bytes user_bytes = user.encode('utf-8')
-        cdef char *user_cstr = user_bytes
-        cdef bytes password_bytes = password.encode('utf-8')
-        cdef char *password_cstr = password_bytes
+        cdef bytes user_bytes
+        cdef char *user_cstr = NULL
+        if user is not None:
+            user_bytes = user.encode('utf-8')
+            user_cstr = user_bytes
+        cdef bytes password_bytes
+        cdef char *password_cstr = NULL
+        if password is not None:
+            password_bytes = password.encode('utf-8')
+            password_cstr = password_bytes
         cdef bytes appname_bytes = appname.encode('utf-8')
         cdef char *appname_cstr = appname_bytes
 
-        DBSETLUSER(login, user_cstr)
-        DBSETLPWD(login, password_cstr)
+        if user is not None:
+            DBSETLUSER(login, user_cstr)
+        if password is not None:
+            DBSETLPWD(login, password_cstr)
         DBSETLAPP(login, appname_cstr)
         if tds_version is not None:
             DBSETLVERSION(login, _tds_ver_str_to_constant(tds_version))
diff --git a/src/pymssql.pyx b/src/pymssql.pyx
index f87688ce..edd5e8c8 100644
--- a/src/pymssql.pyx
+++ b/src/pymssql.pyx
@@ -578,7 +578,7 @@ cdef class Cursor:
         """
         pass
 
-def connect(server='.', user='', password='', database='', timeout=0,
+def connect(server='.', user=None, password=None, database='', timeout=0,
         login_timeout=60, charset='UTF-8', as_dict=False,
         host='', appname=None, port='1433', conn_properties=None, autocommit=False, tds_version=None):
     """
@@ -587,9 +587,9 @@ def connect(server='.', user='', password='', database='', timeout=0,
 
     :param server: database host
     :type server: string
-    :param user: database user to connect as
+    :param user: database user to connect as. Default value: None.
     :type user: string
-    :param password: user's password
+    :param password: user's password. Default value: None.
     :type password: string
     :param database: the database to initially connect to
     :type database: string