SSH was designed by Tatu YlÃ nen in 1995 to replace the insecure protocols rlogin , Telnet and rsh , which were used to access shell accounts . In 1995 , Tatu YlÃ nen , a researcher at Helsinki University of Technology , Finland , designed the first version of the protocol ( now called SSH-1 ) prompted by a password-sniffing attack at his university network . The goal of SSH was to replace the earlier rlogin , TELNET and rsh protocols , which did not provide strong authentication or guarantee confidentiality .