Is non-financial hacking or cracking is haram?

Question

As-salaamu 'alaykum. I am doing a job in a private company as a data entry operator. I have 20 people in my team & we are using companies own software. But, this software doesn't have some features we need. Which makes our working time lengthy. For this reason, I decided to grab the source code of this software from developers PC by a hacking/stealthy way. Then I will add some feature to it & use it. Which will save 90% of working time in some cases. This is to mention that the software developers are not very friendly to us, cause we are third party of this company. They are very careless about us. If we ask them, there is a possibility of bad reaction from them, which can be very harmful for our team.

I understand that stealing anothers peoples property is haram. But I can confirm that it will save our time & power of our team & there has no financial lose or benifite of anyone. In single word, I just want to automate some manual processes.

My question is- should I do it or avoid it? Will the haram of stealing the source code can be considered in any way.? Or will it be hallal, if I disassemble the software, adding features, recompile & use? It can be done without stealing the source code. But, This is much harder, less stable & long time process.

Sorry for big question & bad engilish. Thanks.

Answer 1

Suarah Ar-Rahma: verse 9:

And establish weight in justice and do not make deficient the balance.

You entered into an agreement with this entity to expend a certain amount of effort for a return. Unless they fully acknowledge what you're doing then I'm afraid don't do it.

Don't let Shaytan dimish theft for you. Everything you benefit from financially or not should be out in the open in your dealings.

I understand that stealing anothers peoples property is haram. But ...

You already know within yourself it's haram, other wise you wouldn't have found the need to point this out. There's no but here.

But I can confirm that it will save our time & power of our team & there has no financial lose or benifite of anyone.

Of course, you would benefit from someone else's effort, i.e., whoever wrote the previous code. Simply re-writing the code hasn't solved anything.