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.
- Sep 18, 2026
Data Centers Are Just AI Factories Now
Crusoe's massive new funding round proves that the old guard of web hosting and the new giants of AI infrastructure are now playing entirely different games.
Read article: Data Centers Are Just AI Factories Now→ - Sep 18, 2026
Root Access is Never a Gift: The Acronis Plugin Patch
A privilege-escalation vulnerability in the Acronis cPanel plugin reminds us that even our security tools can become the primary vector for a server compromise if permissions aren't tight.
Read article: Root Access is Never a Gift: The Acronis Plugin Patch→ - Sep 17, 2026
Valuation is Not a Vow of Sale
Asking what your hosting company is worth doesn't mean you're packing your bags; often, it’s just the only way to find out if you’ve actually built something worth keeping.
Read article: Valuation is Not a Vow of Sale→
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: WordPress Click2Shell RCE, libheif Server RCE & Gyazo Infrastructure Breach
CRITICAL: WordPress "Click2Shell" RCE Chain
A critical exploit chain dubbed Click2Shell has been disclosed, allowing attackers to gain Remote Code Execution (RCE) via a single malicious link [1][2]. The attack chains a CSRF vulnerability with selector injection to force the installation of a malicious theme or plugin. If DISALLOW_FILE_MODS is enabled, the impact is reduced but injection remains possible [13].
- CVE / severity: No CVE assigned (WordPress Core Security Update) / High
- Affected versions: WordPress Core < 7.1.1
- Fixed in: WordPress 7.1.1
- Action now:
- Update to WordPress 7.1.1 immediately via
wp core update. - Enable
define('DISALLOW_FILE_MODS', true);inwp-config.phpto prevent unauthorized theme/plugin installations.
- Update to WordPress 7.1.1 immediately via
SERVER INFRASTRUCTURE: libheif Library RCE & Gyazo Breach
A critical vulnerability has been discovered in libheif, the library used by many servers (via ImageMagick/PHP-imagick) to process HEIC/iPhone photos. Exploitation allows attackers to read files or execute code with the permissions of the image-processing worker [5]. Additionally, the Gyazo image hosting service confirmed a breach of 23 million records following a vulnerability in their image upload server on Sept 11, which allowed malicious command execution [12].
- CVE / severity: Not disclosed in sources / Critical
- Affected versions: Servers using libheif for image processing [5]; Gyazo upload servers [12].
- Fixed in: libheif updates (check distribution-specific repositories).
- Action now:
- Update libheif and ImageMagick packages on Linux servers (e.g.,
dnf update libheiforapt upgrade libheif). - Infrastructure teams should audit image processing workflows for unauthorized command execution logs.
- Update libheif and ImageMagick packages on Linux servers (e.g.,
HIGH PRIORITY: WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities
Several high-impact vulnerabilities have been identified in popular plugins, including a broken access control flaw in Forminator (500k+ installs) and an IDOR in LatePoint.
- Forminator Forms Arbitrary Shortcode Execution
- CVE / severity: No CVE assigned / High
- Affected versions: <= 1.57.2
- Fixed in: 1.58.0 (expected/recommended)
- Action now: Update via
wp plugin update forminator.
- LatePoint Appointment Booking IDOR
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-18441 / High (Insecure Direct Object Reference)
- Affected versions: All versions through current reporting [3].
- Fixed in: Not disclosed in sources; check for vendor updates.
- Popup Maker XSS
- CVE / severity: CVE-2026-87915 / Medium
- Affected versions: Up to 1.24.0
- Fixed in: 1.24.1 [7].
SUPPLEMENTARY THREATS
- Newsletter Plugin (XSS): CVE-2026-90981 affects the "Newsletter - Send awesome emails" plugin, allowing reflected cross-site scripting [6].
- WPMU DEV & Avada: Recent reports indicate active exploitation of critical flaws in these ecosystems, potentially leading to site takeover [8].
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.