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 2, 2026
Kevin Mandia’s $2.5 Billion Bet on the Swarm
Kevin Mandia is back with Armadin, a startup leveraging AI agent swarms to automate enterprise security at a staggering multi-billion dollar valuation.
Read article: Kevin Mandia’s $2.5 Billion Bet on the Swarm→ - Oct 2, 2026
Keeping European Data in a European Cloud
OVHcloud and CGI land a major ESA contract, proving that sovereign infrastructure is more than just a marketing buzzword for the European hosting sector.
Read article: Keeping European Data in a European Cloud→ - Oct 1, 2026
Orbital Compute and the Coming War Between Open and Closed Systems
Satlyt is raising $8M to challenge the SpaceX monolith by bringing an open software model to the heavens, and it is a battle I have seen play out many times before.
Read article: Orbital Compute and the Coming War Between Open and Closed Systems→
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: WordPress Core RCE Exploitation & cPanel Root Hijacking via Plugins
NEW CRITICAL EXPLOITATION: WordPress Core RCE
Active exploitation of a new WordPress Core vulnerability has been observed within hours of patch release. This flaw allows for unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) via a single anonymous POST request [2][4]. Attacks are being accelerated by AI-driven scanning tools that shrink the effective patching window to minutes [5].
WordPress Core RCE — Unauthenticated full server control.
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-87902 / CVSS 9.2 (Critical) / Listed in CISA KEV [2][4].
- Affected versions: WordPress Core (exact version range not disclosed in sources, but covers major legacy branches) [2].
- Fixed in: WordPress 6.x and all supported legacy branches (check site health for latest security release) [2][4].
- Action now:
- Update WordPress Core immediately via
wp core updateor the Dashboard. - Review server logs for suspicious POST requests to
/wp-admin/admin-ajax.phpor/with unusual payloads. - Enable a WAF with virtual patching for CVE-2026-87902 [2].
- Update WordPress Core immediately via
INFRASTRUCTURE & HOSTING: cPanel Root Hijacking
New disclosures reveal critical vulnerabilities in cPanel/WHM environments, specifically targeting the LiteSpeed plugins used by many hosting providers. These flaws can lead to root-level hijacking of the hosting server [13][14]. Additionally, F5 and Citrix appliances remain under heavy active exploitation targeting management interfaces [3].
LiteSpeed cPanel/WHM Plugin Vulnerabilities — Elevation of privilege to root.
- CVE / severity: No CVE assigned (identified as CPAI-2026-13356) / High [13][14].
- Affected versions: LiteSpeed cPanel plugin < 2.4.8; LiteSpeed WHM plugin < 5.3 [14].
- Fixed in: LiteSpeed cPanel plugin 2.4.8; LiteSpeed WHM plugin 5.3 [14].
- Action now:
- Update LiteSpeed plugins through the WHM interface or command line.
- Verify integrity of
/etc/shadowand authorized SSH keys to ensure no persistent root access was established.
ACTIVE EXPLOITS: Infrastructure Appliances
Enterprise hosting infrastructure is currently being targeted by state-sponsored and criminal actors focusing on VPN and management gateways [3].
- Citrix NetScaler / F5 BIG-IP / Check Point: Active exploitation confirmed for systems with management interfaces exposed to the public internet [3].
- Action now: Restrict management interfaces (cPanel port 2087, Citrix/F5 MGMT) to trusted IP ranges only via hardware firewall [3].
WORDPRESS ECOSYSTEM: Plugins & Peer-to-Peer Flaws
A surge in plugin vulnerabilities has been reported, with 319 new flaws identified in the last week alone [1].
Autoptimize Stored XSS — Malicious script injection via URL path.
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-14995 / Medium [7].
- Affected versions: Autoptimize up to and including 3.1.12 [7].
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources; update to latest version available [7].
- Action now:
wp plugin update autoptimizeand clear plugin cache.
Radicle P2P Protocol Critical Flaws — Critical vulnerabilities in peer-to-peer code collaboration nodes [6].
- CVE / severity: Not disclosed in sources / Critical [6].
- Affected versions: Radicle node software prior to emergency patch [6].
- Action now: Update Radicle nodes immediately to the latest protocol version [6].
On the
road.
Conferences, summits, and WordCamps I’ll be at in the months ahead.
- Aug 16 – 19, 2026
- Sep 28 – 29, 2026
- Domain Days DubaiRescheduled
New dates to be announced.
Oct 15 – 16, 2026 - 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.