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 3, 2026
Sean Parker, Music, and the Long Game of Forgiveness
Twenty-five years after Napster, Sean Parker is steering Stability AI back into the music business—this time with the labels actually writing the checks.
Read article: Sean Parker, Music, and the Long Game of Forgiveness→ - Oct 2, 2026
Kevin Mandia’s $2.5 Billion Bet on the Swarm
Kevin Mandia is back with Armadin, a startup leveraging AI agent swarms to automate enterprise security at a staggering multi-billion dollar valuation.
Read article: Kevin Mandia’s $2.5 Billion Bet on the Swarm→ - Oct 2, 2026
Keeping European Data in a European Cloud
OVHcloud and CGI land a major ESA contract, proving that sovereign infrastructure is more than just a marketing buzzword for the European hosting sector.
Read article: Keeping European Data in a European Cloud→
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: Critical cPanel Root Flaws, 1.3k Debian Patches & WP Critical RCE
1. Infrastructure & Hosting Environment Alerts
Multiple cPanel & WHM Vulnerabilities — Critical flaws allow attackers to hijack WHM administrator sessions or execute arbitrary commands as the root user [9][10]. These vulnerabilities represent a total bypass of server security boundaries.
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-94512, CVE-2026-94513, CVE-2026-94514 (CVSS scores up to 9.8)
- Affected versions: cPanel & WHM versions prior to 118.0.21, 120.0.14, and 122.0.5
- Fixed in: 118.0.21, 120.0.14, and 122.0.5
- Action now: Run
/scripts/upcpimmediately; verify all WHM active sessions and rotate root credentials if updates were delayed.
Massive Debian Linux Kernel Update — A major security release addresses 1,313 CVE entries. The flaws include multiple paths for local privilege escalation (LPE) and denial of service (DoS), impacting nearly all production-grade server deployments [12].
- CVE / severity: 1313 CVEs (including CVE-2026-88421); severity varies up to Critical
- Affected versions: Multiple Debian stable and oldstable kernel releases
- Fixed in: Current Debian security repository updates (12.x/11.x)
- Action now: Execute
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgradefollowed by a mandatory system reboot to apply the new kernel.
AlmaLinux 9.2 OpenSSH Vulnerabilities — TuxCare and AlmaLinux have released patches for multiple OpenSSH vulnerabilities that could lead to unauthorized access or information disclosure [14].
- CVE / severity: Not fully listed in snippet; impacts
openssh-clientsandopenssh-server - Affected versions: AlmaLinux 9.2
- Fixed in: openssh-8.7p1-30.el9_2.2 or higher
- Action now: Run
dnf update openssh-serverand restart the SSH service.
2. WordPress & CMS Critical Vulnerabilities
Beaver Builder Page Builder Unauthenticated RCE — A critical flaw in the popular page builder allows unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary shortcodes. This can lead to full site takeover depending on other active plugins [1].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-92084 | CVSS: 9.1 (Critical)
- Affected versions: <= 2.11.0.5
- Fixed in: 2.11.0.6 (or latest available version)
- Action now:
wp plugin update beaver-builder-lite-version
Nelio Content Arbitrary Deletion — A missing authorization flaw allows Contributor-level users to delete arbitrary reusable messages, leading to data loss and site disruption [1].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-94505 | CVSS: 8.1 (High)
- Affected versions: <= 4.5.0
- Fixed in: 4.5.1
- Action now: Update Nelio Content plugin immediately; audit recent deletions in plugin logs.
WPMobile.App Authorization Bypass — The Android and iOS App Builder plugin is vulnerable to an authorization bypass, potentially allowing attackers to modify app settings or access restricted data [3].
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-94541 | CVSS: Not disclosed in sources
- Affected versions: All versions up to and including latest reported
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources (Check for version > 11.4)
- Action now: Disable plugin if a patch is not available in the WordPress repository.
3. Active Exploits & Emerging Risks
- Smash Balloon Stored XSS: Active exploitation via Facebook feed parameters (CVE-2026-93756) allows attackers to inject malicious scripts that execute in the context of site visitors [2].
- Gmail Hack Tool Alert: Security researchers are warning of new repositories circulating this week that facilitate automated Gmail credential harvesting, targeting platform administrators [6].
- Industrial Gateway Risk: Moxa MGate industrial protocol gateways (CVE-2026-86325, CVSS 9.4) are vulnerable to memory corruption by read-only users, relevant for infrastructure providers managing IoT/Edge environments [13].
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.