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 28, 2026
Old Reliable is Still Making Us Earn Our Paychecks
When CISA sounds the alarm on PHP vulnerabilities, it’s not just another patch cycle—it’s a reminder that the backbone of the web requires constant vigilance.
Read article: Old Reliable is Still Making Us Earn Our Paychecks→ - Oct 28, 2026
Patching the Foundations While the House is Occupied
The PHP2Shell vulnerability was a stress test for the industry's largest players, proving that scale is both a superpower and a liability in a security crisis.
Read article: Patching the Foundations While the House is Occupied→ - Oct 27, 2026
Betting Against the Green Giant: General Compute and the AI Infrastructure Reality Check
General Compute just pulled a $100M Series A, proving that there is still life—and serious capital—in the quest to build a cloud that isn't entirely dependent on Nvidia.
Read article: Betting Against the Green Giant: General Compute and the AI Infrastructure Reality Check→
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: DreamHost Password Resets, PHP2Shell Updates & Critical CMS Auth Bypass
1. Hosting & Infrastructure Alerts: DreamHost & cPanel
- DreamHost Incident & Mass Password Resets — A major security incident at DreamHost has forced the suspension of their File Manager service and triggered mandatory password resets for numerous Email and FTP accounts [5][6]. The provider cited an undisclosed "issue" with their systems impacting
files.dreamhost.comand webmail services. Reports suggest potential credential exposure [6].- Action Now: Immediately rotate FTP, Webmail, and File Manager passwords for all DreamHost-hosted accounts; audit account logs for unauthorized file modifications performed during the last 48 hours.
- cPanel PHP & Kernel Security Patches — cPanel has released emergency updates to address a new PHP vulnerability and a Linux Kernel flaw impacting hosting environments [9][12].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-115560 (PHP) / Severity not disclosed; Linux Kernel Vulnerability (CVE not specified in source) [12].
- Affected versions: All cPanel & WHM versions utilizing affected PHP/Kernel builds.
- Action Now: Run
/scripts/upcpto update cPanel; executeyum updateordnf updatefollowed by a server reboot to apply latest kernel patches [9][12].
2. Global PHP2Shell Outbreak: New Patch Guidance
- PHP2Shell (RCE) Active Exploitation — The critical PHP2Shell vulnerability suite continues to impact global infrastructure [1][2]. New technical data identifies the specific PHP versions containing the fix [13].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 / CRITICAL.
- Affected versions: PHP versions prior to 8.2.35, 8.3.36, 8.4.27, and 8.5.12 [13].
- Fixed in: PHP 8.2.35, 8.3.36, 8.4.27, 8.5.12.
- Action Now: Upgrade PHP to the fixed branch immediately; restart PHP-FPM and web services (Nginx/Apache) to clear the memory of vulnerable processes [13].
3. WordPress Plugin Critical Vulnerabilities
- Jupiter X Core Authentication Bypass — A high-impact flaw allows attackers to bypass authentication via social login handlers [3].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-106013 / CRITICAL.
- Affected versions: Jupiter X Core plugin (all versions up to and including latest reported) [3].
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources; check developer for immediate hotfix.
- Action Now: Disable Twitter/X Social Login functionality in Jupiter X settings until a patch is confirmed.
- WordPress Newsletters CSRF — A critical Cross-Site Request Forgery flaw allows for unauthorized administrative actions [4].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-116863 / CRITICAL.
- Affected versions: WordPress Newsletters plugin versions <= 4.18.2 [4].
- Fixed in: Upgrade to version > 4.18.2.
- Action Now:
wp plugin update newsletters[4].
4. AI-Driven Infrastructure Threats
- NVIDIA NeMo & AI Pipeline Attacks — A CVSS 10.0 vulnerability in NVIDIA's NeMo toolkit highlights risks for hosting providers offering AI/LLM infrastructure [11]. Simultaneously, new reports indicate the emergence of "CyberStrikeAI," which uses 44 autonomous agents to automate hacking operations against global targets [14].
- CVE / Severity: CVE-2026-65145 / CVSS 10.0 (CRITICAL).
- Affected versions: NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit versions prior to 1.9.0.
- Action Now: Update NeMo Agent Toolkit to 1.9.0; restrict external access to AI staging pipelines [11].
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.