diff --git a/redis/client.py b/redis/client.py
index 79e94d0608..7bd7da147b 100755
--- a/redis/client.py
+++ b/redis/client.py
@@ -496,7 +496,7 @@ def __init__(self, host='localhost', port=6379,
                  charset=None, errors=None,
                  decode_responses=False, retry_on_timeout=False,
                  ssl=False, ssl_keyfile=None, ssl_certfile=None,
-                 ssl_cert_reqs=None, ssl_ca_certs=None,
+                 ssl_cert_reqs='required', ssl_ca_certs=None,
                  max_connections=None):
         if not connection_pool:
             if charset is not None:
diff --git a/redis/connection.py b/redis/connection.py
index 6ad467a744..9652a23004 100755
--- a/redis/connection.py
+++ b/redis/connection.py
@@ -687,8 +687,8 @@ def pack_commands(self, commands):
 class SSLConnection(Connection):
     description_format = "SSLConnection<host=%(host)s,port=%(port)s,db=%(db)s>"
 
-    def __init__(self, ssl_keyfile=None, ssl_certfile=None, ssl_cert_reqs=None,
-                 ssl_ca_certs=None, **kwargs):
+    def __init__(self, ssl_keyfile=None, ssl_certfile=None,
+                 ssl_cert_reqs='required', ssl_ca_certs=None, **kwargs):
         if not ssl_available:
             raise RedisError("Python wasn't built with SSL support")