Securing MySQL backup process
You can create a .my.cnf file in your home directory then store the user/password info on the [mysqldump] section.

vi ~/.my.cnf

[mysqldump]
user = dump_user
password = dump_password


Then, with your mysqldump command, use the --defaults-extra-file option to specify explicitly your conf file has your are in crontab. 

/usr/bin/mysqldump --defaults-extra-file=/home/max/.my.cnf  --single-transaction  --all-databases &gt;/space/mydump.sql


Max.