Maximum Mac OS X Security

If you need to access your OS X machine from a remote terminal, we recommend that you do not enable either telnet or rlogin . Instead, activate the SSH server. With SSH you have secure terminal access, secure file transfer capabilities, and the ability to tunnel otherwise insecure protocols over a secure channel.

If you must have remote desktop access to the machine, tunnel the connections over SSH where possible. If it is not possible to tunnel the connection, then reserve such use only for machines on a private network.