For any business, losing its internet domain name would be a disaster of the highest order. It’s not just the disappearance of the website and the effort involved in building it back up again, but imagine if all the email went too.
All this hangs on a single thing: the registration of the domain name and the security there.
Although rare, domain names have been stolen from registrars, due to lax security at the registrar. This has tended to happen to names which can be resold (probably to someone unaware it was stolen), but it’s possible that a commercial organisation could be held to ransom over it.
More likely however is that a domain name owner forgets to renew a domain, and after a holding period of a few months, it gets recycled on the open market. For that reason it’s critical that we’re all completely on top of where our domain names are registered, and when they should be renewed.
Check your login details at your domain name registrar are still working, and if they’re tied to an email address, that it’s one which will always exist. Check the ‘WHOIS’ record as well, to see how the outside world sees the registration details. The DNProtect site can also provide some useful analysis.