No, but if you do it badly of course it will be. How else do they expect you to login? Unless they are giving you physical access, SSH by all measures is the best way to connect. Leaving it unmaintained is the worst way forward. Just follow best practices and patch on a regular schedule. They seem to be worried about the wrong problem here. Where is your client's security team and why are they ignoring this issue? If they don't have one, then tell them to get one before complaining about something they know nothing about.