Cyber threats are nothing new. I remember back in the late 80s my brother and I managed to infect our parents' x86 computer with a ping pong virus which simply placed an annoying ping pong ball on the screen which would tenaciously bounce around the screen and annoy the crap out of whoever is trying to work on the computer.
Article Link: https://blog.minerva-labs.com/what-makes-ransomware-so-different-from-other-malware-and-cyber-threats