Jason Nickerson — Hosting Industry InsiderTwo decades
inside the web
as it kept rewriting
itself.
I’m Jason, a hosting industry insider with experience across open-source CMS platforms, control panels, cloud infrastructure, and the events that bring the industry together. Today, I focus on building partnerships, programming industry summits, and documenting what is happening across the hosting ecosystem.
- Oct 27, 2026
Betting Against the Green Giant: General Compute and the AI Infrastructure Reality Check
General Compute just pulled a $100M Series A, proving that there is still life—and serious capital—in the quest to build a cloud that isn't entirely dependent on Nvidia.
Read article: Betting Against the Green Giant: General Compute and the AI Infrastructure Reality Check→ - Oct 27, 2026
Transparency as a Feature: Hostinger Pulls Back the DDoS Curtain
Hostinger's new DDoS dashboard is a rare win for transparency in shared hosting, proving that telling users the truth is usually better than hiding behind a generic 500 error.
Read article: Transparency as a Feature: Hostinger Pulls Back the DDoS Curtain→ - Oct 26, 2026
Efficiency Over Art: The AI Content Mill Grinds On
Grok's seven-minute AI-generated film preview marks a technical milestone, but it raises serious questions about the future of creative value in a world of infinite, automated output.
Read article: Efficiency Over Art: The AI Content Mill Grinds On→
The early 2000s were the good years for tinkerers. Open-source CMS platforms were the closest thing we had to a universal starter kit, and PHP-Nuke and osCommerce were how you learned to ship real projects on the open web. I went deep on Joomla for the better part of a decade, contributing code to the project, organizing its community around releases and events, and eventually crossing over into the WordPress orbit that quietly swallowed everything in its path.
From there the story is a tour of the hosting stack: cPanel and the control-panel era that defined shared hosting, the managed cloud wave at Cloudways and DigitalOcean, and the publishing side at webhosting.today. Day to day now I'm at JetBackup, working on backup and disaster recovery and helping hosts protect the infrastructure that keeps everything running. I also program the seasonal industry summits, Atlas Digital Summit and Domain Days Dubai, where the hosting community gathers to set the agenda for what comes next.
The through-line is community, the conferences, the hallway conversations, and the group chats where the industry actually decides what happens next. The technology changes; the people pointing it in the right direction stay the same.
Twenty-something years,
in reverse.
- 2026 – present
FounderAtlas Digital SummitPrivate gatherings for hosting leaders, AI infrastructure innovators, and the builders of the agentic web.
- 2026 – presentFounderConf64
The Conference Operating System for Business Development and Field Marketing Teams.
- 2026 – present
Co-FounderSuperDeployThe advanced migration engine for AI applications. Seamlessly transition your codebase to independent, production-grade infrastructure in minutes.
- 2025 – 2026Director of Business Developmentwebhosting.today
Contract · Business development and partnerships for the hosting publisher.
- 2024 – presentBusiness Development & Partnerships ManagerJetBackup
Backup and disaster recovery for the hosting ecosystem.
- 2023 – present
Chief Marketing Officer, Founding TeamDomain Days DubaiMENA’s domain and digital asset conference.
- 2021 – 2023Senior Manager, WordPress Business Unit → Lead Community Marketing Manager IICloudways / DigitalOcean
Full-time · WordPress community, field marketing, and sales enablement through the acquisition.
- 2019 – 2021Marketing ManagercPanel
Full-time · Event planner and marketing strategist for 500–3,000 attendee events and virtual series.
- 2017 – 2019FounderCMS Summit
The global CMS conference.
- 2007 – 2019CEO | FounderJoomlaxtc.com / Monev Software LLC
Premium Joomla templates and extensions. 101,000+ members.
- 2015 – 2019Board Member, Capital Team ChairJoomla! Project
Leadership, sponsorships, and partnerships for the open-source CMS.
- 2001 – 2005DeveloperPHP-Nuke · osCommerce era
First shipping code in the early open-source web.
Threat Briefing: PHP RCE Emergency Updates, cPanel WAF Over-Blocking & CMS XSS Outbreak
1. INFRASTRUCTURE: Critical PHP RCE & Session Upload Progress Flaw
Emergency response continues for a global PHP exploitation event. Beyond the initial "PHP2Shell" disclosures, a new RCE path involving session upload progress has been identified [12, 14].
PHP Remote Code Execution (RCE) — Unauthenticated attackers can execute arbitrary code on web servers [3, 6].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619, and CVE-2026-115560 | CVSS 9.8 (Critical)
- Affected versions: PHP 8.1.x < 8.1.31, 8.2.x < 8.2.25, and 8.3.x < 8.3.13 [5, 12]
- Fixed in: PHP 8.1.31, 8.2.25, 8.3.13
- Action now:
- Update PHP via package manager:
dnf update phporapt upgrade php. - For CVE-2026-115560: Disable
session.upload_progress.enabledinphp.iniif updates cannot be applied immediately [12]. - Deploy WAF rules to inspect POST body content for shellcode signatures [7, 11].
- Update PHP via package manager:
2. HOSTING CONTROL PANELS: cPanel ModSecurity "False Positive" Crisis
Infrastructure teams using cPanel/WHM report that emergency ModSecurity rules deployed to mitigate the PHP2Shell outbreak are causing widespread service disruption [11].
ModSecurity Body Inspection Conflict — Server-wide body inspection rules are blocking legitimate CMS administrative actions [11].
- Affected versions: cPanel systems with default "PHP2Shell" mitigation rules enabled.
- Impact: WordPress, Elementor, and Joomla users are unable to save posts or settings (403 Forbidden errors) [11].
- Action now:
- Review ModSecurity logs (
/var/log/apache2/modsec_audit.log) for triggered rule IDs. - Whitelist specific CMS administrative paths (e.g.,
wp-admin/admin-ajax.php) within the WAF configuration to restore functionality without disabling the core protection [11].
- Review ModSecurity logs (
3. WORDPRESS: Unauthenticated Stored XSS in High-Install Plugins
New disclosures today reveal critical Stored XSS vulnerabilities in the popular LiteSpeed Cache and Otter Blocks plugins, both of which allow unauthenticated attackers to inject malicious scripts [1].
LiteSpeed Cache & Otter Blocks Unauthenticated Stored XSS — Allows attackers to inject scripts into the site database to hijack administrator sessions [1].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-113499 (LiteSpeed), CVE-2026-109936 (Otter) | CVSS 7.2 (High)
- Affected versions: LiteSpeed Cache < 7.9.2; Otter Blocks < 3.2.8
- Fixed in: LiteSpeed Cache 7.9.2; Otter Blocks 3.2.8
- Action now:
- Run
wp plugin update litespeed-cache otter-blocksvia WP-CLI. - Audit recent site changes if running vulnerable versions, specifically looking for injected
<script>tags in cached headers or block metadata.
- Run
4. CMS VULNERABILITY ROUNDUP
Additional high-impact flaws affecting site builders and core theme components were patched in the last 24 hours [1, 4].
- Jupiter X Core (CVE-2026-10511, CVSS 6.4): Authenticated Stored XSS via
forget_password_link. Affected: <= 4.61.0. Fix: Update to version 4.62.0 or higher. - Post Grid for WordPress (CVE-2026-115595): Stored XSS in block editor components. Affected: <= 2.5.1. Fix: Update to latest version [4].
- HIPAA Forms (CVE-2026-109927, CVSS 6.3): Privilege Escalation via custom roles. Affected: < 3.3.2. Fix: Update to 3.3.2 [1].
- Essential Addons for Elementor (CVE-2026-110510, CVSS 6.4): Authenticated Stored XSS. Affected: < 6.8.7. Fix: Update to 6.8.7 [1].
On the
road.
Conferences, summits, and WordCamps I’ll be at in the months ahead.
- Nov 11 – 12, 2026
- State of the WordDec 2026
- Mar 15 – 18, 2027
When the servers
go quiet.
A small digital label putting out industrial house, progressive house, and dubstep. A different kind of open protocol.
Twenty years of showing up for the projects, communities, and voices that keep the open web open.
A news portal covering the hosting and domain industry — and a running excuse to keep talking to the people who build it.