Re: Why would Telnet be required...
At least someone wishing to get into the equipment would have to be onsite.
We don't always wanna be onsite. In many cases, the thing we need to talk to, is installed on an island or some 4 hour drive into the forest on 'Gravel & Log' roads (RADAR and Electrical Substation). Don't get me wrong, an expedition into Nature is kinda fun, but, during a severe snowstorm .... nah, maybe not so much.
Usually, insecure stuff like Telnet is exposed via a pretty well secured "JumpBox", a dedicated computer / or a virtual machine which has access to some of the VPN's dedicated to system management, in this case Telnet. This machine will work similarly to the "RS-232 to IP" multiplex device we used to install in each rack, when everything was serial and we still didn't want to go down there, only Globally.
Of course if someone hacks the JumpBox, they can do bad things.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
