Which remote access protocol is considered secure and preferred over Telnet?

• A. Telnet
• B. SSH
• C. HTTP
• D. FTP

Answer: (B)

Remote access sessions must protect credentials and commands from interception. SSH, or Secure Shell, provides an encrypted channel and robust authentication for remote login and command execution, so credentials and session data stay confidential and tamper-proof even over untrusted networks.

Telnet sends everything in plaintext, so passwords and commands can be captured and read by anyone monitoring the traffic. HTTP is designed for web traffic, not interactive remote administration, and FTP is a file-transfer protocol that often transmits credentials in plaintext as well (secure variants exist, but they’re not used for interactive remote shells like SSH).

For these reasons, SSH is the secure and preferred option for remote access over Telnet.