A better solution was needed, and that solution came in the form of a tool called secure shell, or ssh. The most popular modern incarnation of this tool is available in the openssh package, available for virtually every Linux distribution, not to mention many other systems.

What sets ssh apart from its insecure cousins is that it encrypts all communications between the client and the server using strong encryption. By doing this, it becomes difficult (impossible, even) to monitor the communications between the client and server. In this way, ssh provides its service as advertised -- it is a secure shell. In fact, ssh has excellent "all-round" security -- even authentication takes advantage of encryption and various key exchange strategies to ensure that the user's password cannot be easily grabbed by anyone monitoring data being transmitted over the network.

In this age of the popularization of the Internet, ssh is a valuable tool for enhancing network security when using Linux systems. Most security-savvy network admins discourage the use of -- or even don't allow the use of -- telnet and rsh on their systems at all because ssh is such a capable and secure replacement.