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 19, 2026
The App Store’s AI Trojan Horse Problem
Apple is finally cracking down on AI apps that use bait-and-switch tactics to bypass content moderation, a move that signals the end of the 'wild west' era for generative mobile tools.
Read article: The App Store’s AI Trojan Horse Problem→ - Oct 19, 2026
The Dashboard Is the New Marketing Agency
Hostinger is embedding Google Ads directly into its management panel, proving that the modern host needs to be more than just a place to park files.
Read article: The Dashboard Is the New Marketing Agency→ - Oct 17, 2026
Protein Muffins and Pivot Tables: The Longevity Market Goes Mass
Mark Wahlberg is trading the NYSE drama for a new fitness venture that aims to bring high-end biohacking to the budget-conscious consumer.
Read article: Protein Muffins and Pivot Tables: The Longevity Market Goes Mass→
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: cPanel/Kernel RCE, Plex2Shell Exploits & WordPress SQLi/PrivEsc
⚠️ CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE & HOSTING ALERTS
cPanel & WHM Linux Kernel Vulnerability — Unauthenticated RCE [13]
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-87899 / Critical (9.8)
- Affected versions: cPanel & WHM (All Major Distributions) using cpdavd service; CalDAV/CardDAV components in version 120 and later [14].
- Fixed in: Current builds (e.g., 120.0.12+); consult
/usr/local/cpanel/cpanel -V[12][13]. - Action now:
- Execute
/scripts/upcpimmediately to apply security patches. - Restart the
cpdavdservice:/scripts/restartsrv_cpdavd. - Verify kernel integrity; some reports indicate this exploit chain leads to root escalation via CalDAV/CardDAV flaws [14].
- Execute
Plex2Shell Active Exploitation — Remote Shell & Cryptojacking [2]
- CVE / Severity: No CVE assigned (Plex2Shell) / Critical.
- Affected versions: Plex Media Server versions prior to 1.43.3.10861.
- Fixed in: 1.43.3.10861.
- Action now:
- Update Plex Media Server to the latest stable release via the web dashboard or manual package install.
- Inspect server process lists for unauthorized miners (high CPU usage).
- Rotate server tokens if an compromise is suspected.
Armory Castle (UNC5221) BeyondTrust Zero-Day Exploitation [4]
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-102764 / Critical.
- Affected versions: BeyondTrust Remote Support (versions not fully disclosed in sources).
- Fixed in: Patches released by vendor.
- Action now:
- Apply BeyondTrust emergency updates immediately.
- Review access logs for UNC5221 indicators of compromise (IOCs), particularly Chinese state-sponsored patterns.
🛡️ WORDPRESS & CMS VULNERABILITIES
OttoKit (SureTriggers) Critical Privilege Escalation [7]
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-110372 / Critical.
- Affected versions: Brainstorm Force OttoKit (SureTriggers plugin) - exact range not disclosed.
- Fixed in: Latest version available on WordPress.org.
- Action now:
- Update via
wp plugin update suretriggers. - Audit user roles for unauthorized Administrator accounts created in the last 48 hours.
- Update via
Booktics Plugin Unauthenticated SQL Injection [5][6]
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-109894 / High.
- Affected versions: Arraytics Booktics <= 1.0.29.
- Fixed in: 1.0.30 (or latest available version).
- Action now:
- Update plugin immediately.
- WAF owners: Deploy rules to block SQL injection patterns targeting
admin-ajax.phpassociated with Booktics.
eStore Theme Reflected XSS [1]
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-108485 / Medium.
- Affected versions: ThemeGrill eStore (all versions prior to patch).
- Fixed in: Latest version.
- Action now:
- Update theme to latest version to prevent session hijacking and malicious redirects.
🔍 TRENDING THREATS & RESEARCH
- WordPress Structural Weakness: New analysis suggests 96% of CMS attacks target plugins, citing a fundamental architectural inability to sandbox third-party code without breaking core functionality [3]. Agencies should prioritize "EmDash" style sandboxing or strict plugin auditing.
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.