<i>&quot;I&#x27;ve never operated in a network where SSH on network equipment was accessible to anyone without intranet access through either physical location or VPN.&quot;</i><p>Doesn&#x27;t help. The attacker just has to get user-level access on some machine on the intranet or in the data center, which can be obtained via other attacks. Then then can attack other machines via the local network to escalate.