The phrase "attempt to damage a" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts where someone is trying to harm or undermine something, whether it be a reputation, relationship, or physical object.
Example: "The hacker's attempt to damage a critical system was thwarted by the security team."
Alternatives: "effort to harm a" or "try to undermine a".
In Montpellier, in southern France, several gasoline bombs damaged an office building during the night between Wednesday and Thursday in what police said appeared to be a botched attempt to damage a Jewish community center in an apartment on the same street.
(Prince's origin story, which involves a vengeful girlfriend's attempt to damage a cheating Thornton Prince by dosing his chicken with every speck of cayenne she had in the house, may be apocryphal, but it is also kind of great).
The high jumper Javier Sotomayor angrily denied he ever used cocaine and said new accusations by an international track official were an attempt to damage his character.
"We saw this attack by bin Laden and his men as an attack on us, too, and an attempt to damage the U.S.-Saudi relationship," the crown prince said.
Mr. Schiff accused Republicans of pursuing a kind of prosecution against Mrs. Clinton in an attempt to damage her presidential campaign.
The above speaker was not criticizing Senator A's plan, but bringing up an old problem that the senator had with alcohol, in an attempt to damage his reputation.
He accused the BfV of pandering to a "certain societal climate" and called the move a deliberate attempt to damage the AfD's prospects before elections in the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia.
In an attempt to damage her reputation, Hydra uses Ms. Marvel's costumed visage to advertise the new development; protests calling her a sellout ensue.
But in an attempt to damage her with black voters, he also invoked her use of the word "superpredator" in the 1990s to describe youthful criminals.
The government has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting trouble in an attempt to damage the games and foster the cause of Tibetan separatism.
According to the report, filed on 5 July, Suthamtewakul accused Alexis of putting an unknown substance in his car's gas tank in an attempt to damage the vehicle.
