How to Hack Other Players in Don't Get Fired At Work (And What It Does)

Hacking is a built-in sabotage feature in Don't Get Fired At Work — the official description puts it right next to paper throwing: "SABOTAGE OTHER PLAYERS BY HACKING THEM AND THROWING PAPER AT THEM." In practice it works like this: during a work round you press the Hack button, beat a short hacking challenge against the employee you picked, and part of their work becomes yours. Here's the full sequence, what it does to the target, and when it's worth the risk.

How to hack another employee

1. Get to a work round. Hacking lives on the same screen as your job. While everyone answers emails during the meeting, a Hack option appears alongside the normal buttons — prompts read "Approve, delete, hack, scan network." (If the work itself is still confusing, the work tasks page breaks it down.)
2. Pick a target. Starting a hack opens a challenge against another employee in the office.
3. Win the challenge. It plays like a rhythm game: key prompts such as W, A, S and D pop up and you hit them in order. Some runs instead walk you through prompts like "Hack. Scan.", so treat the exact format as something that can vary.
4. Finish the sequence to steal. Complete the challenge and you win the hack — the payoff is a cut of the target's work.

What the hack does to the target

Winning the hack transfers part of the target's work progress and files to you. The amount isn't fixed: one winning hack showed "15% stolen", and another hacker finished the challenge with +21% work added to his own counter. Treat those as examples rather than a fixed rate — the exact amount varies.

The target isn't a silent victim, either. A hack in progress tips them off — hacked computers take a "system update" and can pick up a virus — and the target gets a defensive challenge to fight back. If the target wins that duel, the hack fails and their files stay put: the game can show "Hack interrupted.", "Hack is blocked." and "hex ended. Your files are safe." Expect some attempts to fail.

The catch: hacking takes time away from your own work

Every second you spend in a hacking challenge is a second you aren't handling your own emails — and if the target wins the duel, you walk away with nothing for it. Even a successful steal may not repay the pause: one player who hacked a rival while already in the lead called the move "incredibly inefficient" and figured the wasted time might cost him the round. Hack when it pays — you're comfortably ahead, your target has real progress worth taking, or you can afford the break. Otherwise, keeping your own output up is the safer play — see how not to get fired.

The mechanic was recently overhauled

The developers have promoted a "NEW HACKING OVERHAUL" and told players to try the new mechanic, so hacking has been revised since the older clips floating around. The steps above are the loop to look for, but exact prompts and values may differ from older footage. Recent patch details land on the updates page.

Hacking is only half of the office sabotage toolkit. For the other way to torment your co-workers, see throwing paper, and if you're brand new to the job, the how not to get fired guide covers the daily loop from clock-in to quitting time.