Change is the only constant, the saying goes. Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, expressed this first in 500 BC when he wrote:
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”
The river is not static but dynamic—it flows—and people are the same because they age. This is a good metaphor for corporate computer systems, which are constantly changing as new kit is added.
When it comes to people, all companies have staff turnover—leavers and joiners must be deleted and added to the systems. Keeping the HR database and the IT user database in sync is often a problem—old user accounts that should have been deleted are a common attack vector.