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.
- Nov 3, 2026
Low-Code AI Training Is the New Managed Hosting
Trajectory's $45M raise suggests we are moving past the 'hacker' phase of AI and into the era where the business suite finally takes the wheel.
Read article: Low-Code AI Training Is the New Managed Hosting→ - Nov 2, 2026
OpenAI and the Reality of Shrinking Rounds
When the most talked-about AI company in the world scales back its funding goals, it is a clear signal that the era of the blank check might finally be closing.
Read article: OpenAI and the Reality of Shrinking Rounds→ - Nov 2, 2026
The Domain Tail Wagging the Hosting Dog
GoDaddy's Q3 2026 numbers are out, and the trend is clear: domains are keeping the lights on for the core business while hosting continues to lose its grip.
Read article: The Domain Tail Wagging the Hosting Dog→
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: PAN-OS Firewall Exploits, cPGuard Backdoor & WordPress Core RCE
1. INFRASTRUCTURE & HOSTING ALERTS
cPGuard Security Breach — Malicious updates distributed with credential-stealing backdoors [14].
- CVE / severity: no CVE assigned / CRITICAL
- Affected versions: cPGuard 5.88.12 through 5.88.19
- Fixed in: 5.88.20+
- Action now:
- Run
/usr/local/cpguard/scripts/cpg-updateto force version 5.88.20. - Mandatory: Rotate all cPanel/WHM root passwords and database credentials; the backdoor actively collected password hashes [14].
- Run
PAN-OS Firewall Chain — Threat actors have successfully compromised 25 systems, including perimeter firewalls and management servers [3].
- CVE / severity: Multiple (Chained) / CRITICAL
- Affected versions: PAN-OS perimeter firewalls and internal management servers [3].
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources; refer to Palo Alto Networks security advisories.
- Action now: Inspect firewall logs for unauthorized management access and verify integrity of internal management servers [3].
- Note: Cloudflare's new "Zero Wire" hub is now providing telemetry for these critical infrastructure CVEs [4].
OpsShield Cloud Server Snapshot — Unauthorized replication of cloud infrastructure [10].
- Incident Date: 2026-11-02 02:13 UTC
- Details: Attackers successfully made copies of three cloud servers within the manage.opsshield.com infrastructure [10].
- Action now: If using OpsShield managed services, review server logs for unusual administrative activity and rotate API keys.
2. WORDPRESS & CMS VULNERABILITIES
WordPress Core RCE — CISA confirms active exploitation of a flaw triggered during the update process [1].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-119977 / CRITICAL
- Affected versions: WordPress Core (Affected versions not specifically listed in source beyond "Core flaw") [1].
- Fixed in: Latest WordPress stable release.
- Action now:
- Execute
wp core updateimmediately. - Monitor for unauthenticated requests to the WordPress upgrade API endpoints [1].
- Execute
CryptoPayment Gateway Credential Theft — Critical flaw allowing extraction of cleartext wallet keys [5].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-81648 / 10.0 (Critical)
- Affected versions: CryptoPayment Gateway 1.2.1 – 1.2.2
- Fixed in: Plugin closed/removed from directory [5].
- Action now:
- Uninstall the plugin immediately.
- Rotate all cryptocurrency wallet private keys and API credentials previously stored in the plugin settings [5].
XSS2Shell Escalation — Chained vulnerability allowing RCE via the login interface [2].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-64638 / HIGH
- Affected versions: WordPress login handlers (Specific version range not disclosed in source) [2].
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources.
- Action now: Implement WAF rules to block malicious scripts in login fields and ensure strict input sanitization [2].
BuddyPress XProfile File Deletion — Arbitrary file deletion flaw affecting user profile fields [6].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-120518 / HIGH
- Affected versions: BuddyPress XProfile Image Field up to 3.1.0
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources.
- Action now: Deactivate the plugin until a patch is verified by Tenable/Rapid7 [6][7].
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.