Yes...and no.

While the words Vandal, from the Latin Vandalus-i,was present in a lot of languages before the XVIIIth century, vandalism is a recent enough word as it appears in 1794, coined by Henri Grégoire, a radical revolutionary priest, during the French Revolution.

L'Abbé Grégoire was supporting radical changes in society : centralisation and equality based on merit in education, abolition of slavery, opposition to what remotely looked like as privileges, etc. But something annoyed him, the senseless destruction of historical monuments, archives and anything coming from the past let to either sheer neglect, beotian opportunism (such as destroying monuments to sell bricks or stone) or wanton destruction.

In spite of his fierce opposition to monarchy, Grégoire indeed thinks that Arts and History belong to the nation, and neither nobility or weather gang set on destruction, and prepared a speech at the Convention to condemn these destruction and the non-application of laws on their protection.
As most of revolutionary elites, he's the heir of French Enlightement : Voltaire already used "Vandal" to name someone impervious to culture and prone to destruction which itself came from a previous use of the word by Catholics, labelling Protestant iconoclasm as "Vandalic".

Grégoire would then use Vandal to name the destructor of French cultural patrimony he wants to protect, and name the execution of such acts vandalisme,"coining the word to destroy the thing"

It's in Arts that the greatest dilapidations were committed. Do not believe that we overstate the problem as we tell you that the nomenclature only of stolen, destroyed or damaged objects would fill many volumes. The temporary Commission of Arts, whom zeal is indefatigable, look as conquests the monuments that it gains from ignorance, greed,counter-revolutionary spirit, that are seemingly allied to impoverish and dishonour the Nation.

As fire devours one of the most beautiful libraries of the Republic, as storage of combustible matters seems to threaten other libraries yet, vandalism redoubles its efforts. There's not a day that passes without a saddening news of another destruction : laws on preserving monuments being inapplicable or inefficient, we felt our duty was to give to your interest a detailed account on this matter.

These modern thief and destructor are accused being led by ignorance, greed and counter-revolution; just as the Vandals of old were accused of since the XVIth century.

But were Vandals particularly destructive and foes of anything civilized? It doesn't really seem so.
Of course, Barbarians weren't peaceful groups just happening to wander in Romania : they were a particularly militarized people led by late imperial warlords searching to set and increase their power and wealth trough raiding and conquering. Vandals, furthermore,at the contrary of other Barbarian peoples, had a more tensed relation with Romans in their newly established kingdoms, possibly because of a more important land takeover and their opposition to Nicean Christianity during the first period.

Still, while there's no big and systematic destruction attributable to Vandals, their "original sin", so to speak, was the Sack of Rome in 455.

Gaiseric wanted to take the lead in the late imperial world, allying with the Theodosian dynasty, but his hopes were crushed after Valentinian III was murdered, and as revenge Gaiseric decided to attack Rome and after the city came to terms, it was ransomed and sacked for 14 days, plundering much more thorough than the previous sack of 410. Opinions diverge when it comes to the severity of the sack, but apart Victor of Vita (which had an axe to grind against Vandals) other accounts for a fairly "civilized" sack which was planned, thorough and impoverishing but not necessarily destructive when it came to monuments.

Still, when Rome was sacked by Germans in 1572, the memory of Vandals was conjured to establish a precedent attack on Rome and Christianity by heretic Germans, reintroducing the word Vandal as synonymous of destruction until it was given a new form by a revolutionary priest.