Insights on Technology the Ice to the Enterprise: A Night of Cyber Insights and Hockey Legends
In early 2025, as part of our #TeamUp partnership with the Official Data Backup Partner of the Calgary Flames, Acronis, we had the privilege of hosting an insightful talk by Dan Havens, this leading organization’s Chief Growth Officer. Acronis is one of our key partners in backup, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity.
The event featured a lineup of activities, including a panel discussion on cybersecurity and the current threat landscape, and an interview with Calgary Flames Legends Jamie Macoun and Mike Vernon.
But before the nostalgia and facility tour began, attendees were treated to a sobering yet insightful presentation from Mr. Havens.
“We’re delighted to have this partnership,” the our CEO and Founder Vince Fung stated, introducing Havens. “He helped us put this together, and Acronis has been an amazing partner.”
The New Most Profitable Words: Ransom Notes
After taking the stage, Havens wasted no time in painting a vivid picture of today’s threat landscape.
“It used to be said the most profitable words ever written were placed into advertising,” he opened. “But in today’s time, there’s no question—the most profitable words are the ones in your ransom note.”
He highlighted the alarming scale of cybercrime, calling it a “multi, multi, multi-billion dollar industry.” From his vantage point, he often hears firsthand the devastation:
“When people aren’t protected and they get hit, and this happens so much more often than anybody realizes, one of the first phone calls they make is to my company. I get to hear people on the other end of the phone screaming, yelling, cussing, swearing, some cases, crying because their life’s work is now melting down before their eyes, and they were not protected.”
Cybercrime Is Easy—and Scalable
One of the most concerning elements Havens emphasized through the example of ransomware as a service, is how accessible cybercrime has become, and how the cybercrime is also a “big business”, able to operate at scale.
“You don’t have to be sophisticated to make lots of money in this ransom game,” he said. “You can be a snot-nosed kid in your grandmother’s basement, go on the dark web, and get tools called ‘ransomware as a service’.” Criminals then simply need to phish a single employee, then hand over the details to a ransomware gang. “They negotiate the ransom. You get a cut,” he added.
“We work with those insurance companies that insure companies against cyber attacks, and it’s crazy to hear how they talk. They actually know many of these [threat actors] (…). In fact, most [cybercriminals] have 24/7 tech support. These are criminals. They have 24/7 tech support because they know if you pay your ransom, the insurance company negotiates and you pay your ransom and your system doesn’t come fully on board, they’re never getting paid to get. So when they provide the fix and it doesn’t work, their 24/7 support rivals that of some of the biggest tech corporations in the world. This is huge business. And because of that, the easy money this problem is not going away.”
“If There’s Easy Money Out There, They’re Coming for It”
In a compelling anecdote, Dan Havens illustrated how opportunism drives behavior—whether it’s enterprising kids warning drivers of speed traps and then asking for tips, or cybercriminals chasing easy payouts through ransomware as a service.
The metaphor was crystal clear:
“If there’s easy money out there, they’re coming for it. Ransom has become a game that anybody can play,” said Havens.
Businesses Are Not Prepared
Drawing on recent research, Dan Havens outlined why businesses remain vulnerable:
- 73% of companies don’t believe they could survive a targeted attack.
- 39% abandoned security tools due to false positives and alert fatigue.
- 55% admitted prioritizing business operations over cybersecurity posture.
“You can’t blame them,” he said of businesses who have struggled on the cybersecurity front, “I mean, when it comes to the cyber game, it’s not one thing. You’ve got to be able to detect ransom. You’ve got to be able to detect advanced threats. You’ve got to be able to do your security assessments. You got to check your email. Got to protect your SAS apps. And when the spit hits the fan, you’ve got to have a backup or disaster recovery strategy in place.”
He recalled a recent IT outage that turned a two-hour flight into a two-day journey, and highlighted that for small to mid-sized businesses, this type of outage could be almost impossible to weather.
Simplifying Complexity: Why Acronis Partners with MSPs like Expera IT
According to Dan Havens, delivering their solutions is where Acronis’s partnership strategy becomes critical. He provided details about the #CyberFit partnership.
“I’ve got 25,000 partners worldwide… Only 70 of them have we made the investment we made with Expera. Internally, we call it picking the winners,” he said, of the #TeamUp program.
“I invented this program. And it became lightning in a bottle. And we decided to look where we go and we find who is that regional winner, and then we invest because our route to market is through the service provider. That makes everything I mentioned before, the complexity enough hard to make this happen, they make that easy. They make it turnkey.
They, in essence, give executives a good night’s sleep. So I want you to be in tune with when I get up here and say, these guys are best-in-class. They’re absolutely best in class. We made these investments before and will continue to make these investments. And if you are thinking about ‘this is something very real that I need to address’, there is no easier and more forward path to be able to address this than just go see my friends.”
The True Benefit of Cybersecurity: A Good Night’s Sleep.
Dan Havens wrapped with a personal story that brought the message home.
“My mom asks, ‘Daniel, what is it that you sell?’ And lately all I answer with is I just sell a good night’s sleep.”
For CFOs and business leaders, the takeaway was clear: cybersecurity isn’t optional—it’s essential.
If you’d like to keep your business operating safely and securely, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team.
Next Up: A Panel on Cybersecurity Trends and Real-World Threats
With the presentation concluded, the event transitioned into a live panel featuring top minds in cyber resilience and risk mitigation.
Get the recap, or watch the panel here.
It was our honor to put on this event in partnership with Acronis and two Calgary Flames Legends. Bringing together business leaders, cybersecurity experts, and hockey legends under one roof made for an unforgettable evening of insights, inspiration, and community.
