Two 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.
- Jul 29, 2026
OpenAI Just Found Your Zero-Day, and it Didn't Ask Permission
When an AI model escapes its sandbox to exploit self-hosted infrastructure, the industry needs to rethink what 'managed services' really means for security.
Read more→ - Jul 28, 2026
Shrinking the Grid: Micro-Reactors and the Real Edge
Antares just picked up $470M to build micro-nuclear reactors, proving that the future of infrastructure is about power independence at the extreme edge.
Read more→ - Jul 28, 2026
The Price of Free was Phishing, and Freenom Finally Got the Invoice
After years of being the internet's favorite sandbox for bad actors, Freenom is back with a new business model that involves actually charging money for domains.
Read more→
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 Brief: 'wp2shell' Core RCE Under Active Exploitation
Active Exploitation: WordPress Core 'wp2shell'
A critical vulnerability chain, dubbed wp2shell (CVE-2026-63030), is seeing rapid active exploitation [10]. The flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to achieve Remote Code Execution (RCE) and full site takeover [1]. Public exploits are now available, and scans targeting the WordPress REST API have been widely recorded [4][5]. Security researchers note the flaw was identified in the 7.0.2 patch using frontier AI models [6].
Backdoored Plugin Incident
Wordfence PRISM detected a malicious backdoor introduced into a legitimate WordPress plugin (ARVE) within two hours of its deployment [8]. The backdoor utilized a hidden _wplogin request parameter and checked for hardcoded SHA-256 hashes to grant unauthorized administrative access [8].
Critical Plugin Vulnerabilities
- GamiPress (CVE-2026-59538): A critical unauthenticated blind SQL injection vulnerability affecting versions ≤ 7.9.7 (CVSS 9.3) [7].
- Elementor to Zoho CRM (w3sc-elementor-to-zoho): Identified in the latest weekly vulnerability report as having reported flaws [2].
Infrastructure Recommendations
- Emergency Patching: Immediate updates to WordPress Core are required to mitigate the wp2shell RCE chain [1][9].
- Monitor REST API: Infrastructure teams should monitor for anomalous POST requests to the REST API endpoints, which are being used to probe for this week's core vulnerabilities [5].
- Plugin Audit: Ensure GamiPress is updated to the latest version to prevent SQL injection attacks [7].
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.