Law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, which flagged the phenomenon as an emerging cybersecurity threat for 2020 in a recent report, warns that “the rise of disruptionware is a new and even more chaotic form of cyber warfare attack.” Disruptionware doesn’t just try to encrypt and deny access to users’ data for monetary gain, as ransomware does, Drinker Biddle notes. Instead, these attacks aim to “disrupt” key infrastructure in order to achieve a particular strategic goal.

The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a Washington, D.C. think tank, provides many accounts of the disruptionware phenomenon in a 2019 report. “Disruptionware is an emerging category of malware designed to suspend operations within a victim organization through the compromise of the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of the systems, networks, and data belonging to the target,” according to the report.

Most at risk are manufacturers, transport firms and energy companies, researchers wrote. For example, last year the aluminum giant Norsk Hydro revealed that the LockerGoga ransomware had impacted its global operations, costing an estimated $40 million although the company refused to pay the ransom.

New terms like “disruptionware” aside, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently issued a warning about “high-impact” attacks on critical private and public sector institutions, especially healthcare organizations.

The leading source of cyber attacks, meanwhile, may remain familiar. According to a report by security consulting firm CybSafe, which studied the Information Commissioner Office's cyber breach data from 2017 to 2019, almost half of data breaches were initiated by a phishing attack. Indeed, phishing ranked ahead of unauthorized access, ransomware, malware and misconfigurations as attack vectors for hackers.