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.
- Aug 21, 2026
When the Deep Pockets Get Picked
Apollo Global Management joins the growing list of financial giants facing data breaches, proving that even the most massive war chests can't buy immunity from modern exploits.
Read article: When the Deep Pockets Get Picked→ - Aug 20, 2026
SpaceX, AI Coding, and the Gravity of Developer Workflows
Rumors of SpaceX chasing Cognition suggest Elon Musk is moving beyond rockets to control the very code that builds them, even if the CEO is currently playing hard to get.
Read article: SpaceX, AI Coding, and the Gravity of Developer Workflows→ - Aug 20, 2026
WordPress 7.1: Finally Moving Past the 'Just a Blog' Identity Crisis
WordPress 7.1 'Mary Lou' lands with refined collaboration tools and responsive controls that show the platform is finally growing up for the modern agency workflow.
Read article: WordPress 7.1: Finally Moving Past the 'Just a Blog' Identity Crisis→
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: Elementor Pro RCE, Sakura Cloud Breach & CSF Root Escalation
1. WordPress / CMS Supply Chain
Critical RCE in Elementor Pro via File Upload — Unauthenticated attackers can upload executable PHP files through the plugin's Form module, leading to full site takeover [1][3][5].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-32475 (CVSS 9.0)
- Affected versions: Elementor Pro 3.20.0 to 3.25.1
- Fixed in: Elementor Pro 3.25.2
- Action now:
- Execute
wp plugin update elementor-proimmediately. - Inspect
/wp-content/uploads/elementor/forms/for unexpected.phpfiles. - Implement WAF rules to block POST requests containing executable extensions to form upload endpoints.
- Execute
Unauthenticated Privilege Escalation in WordPress Core — A new vulnerability allowing remote attackers to gain elevated permissions via incorrect privilege assignment [4].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-73390 (Severity: High / CWE-266)
- Affected versions: Not explicitly disclosed in sources.
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources.
- Action now:
- Monitor for unauthorized administrative account creation.
- Apply generic WordPress core security hardening and restrict access to
/wp-admin/via IP whitelisting where possible.
XSS in Aora Theme — Medium priority vulnerability allows for Cross-Site Scripting [13].
- Affected versions: Aora Theme <= 1.3.19
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources.
- Action now: Update to the latest available version via theme provider or deploy a virtual patch through Patchstack.
2. Servers & Hosting Infrastructure
Sakura Internet Data Center & Cloud Breach — A major Japanese infrastructure provider suffered a breach of its customer and sales management systems on August 9, impacting 1.36 million accounts [8][9].
- Impact: Leakage of customer records and identity information; potential for secondary phishing or infrastructure targeting [6].
- Action now:
- If using Sakura Internet services, rotate all management console credentials and API keys.
- Audit infrastructure for unauthorized SSH keys or new admin users added around Aug 9.
ConfigServer Firewall (CSF) Root Access Vulnerability — A critical fix has been released for a vulnerability that could allow local privilege escalation to root [12].
- Impact: Local users can bypass security controls to gain full server root access.
- Affected versions: Versions prior to the August 2026 security release.
- Fixed in: Latest CSF update (check
/etc/csf/version). - Action now:
- Run
csf -uto update the firewall immediately. - Restart the CSF and LFD services:
csf -r.
- Run
Gogs Self-Hosted Git RCE — Remote Code Execution vulnerability in the popular lightweight self-hosted Git service used by many dev teams [14].
- Affected versions: Gogs 10.0
- Fixed in: See latest Gogs security release.
- Action now: Update Gogs instances immediately; ensure the Git service is not exposed to the public internet without a VPN or tunnel.
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.