Cutting an UTP cable while it's plugged in

I have an UTP cable coming from a router far, far away. The plastic part which keeps it from falling out of the socket was damaged, and I intend to replace it.

Is there any danger of cutting it while only disconnecting it from my part, and not following and disconnecting it on the other end (which is very hard to be accessed) ?

I mean, while I cut it, some of the 8 cables might make contact with each other. If one end is disconnected and the other not, can it cause any problems?

(the simple form of this question is: If I connect the individual cables in an UTP cable with each other while one end is free and the other end is plugged in, can it damage hardware?)

It sounds like you'd have the same problem as if you tried to plug a wrong cable in (like a console cable), any reasonable network card should just discard the data as complete crap (which it would need to do anyway if you had a regular short or background noise)

Especially if you're unplugging one side, you're already taking care of the majority of the problem.

(Note that this is still my answer after your edit, I understand what you're asking, I do not think any reasonable hardware should die from this).

I suppose if the cable has Power over Ethernet on it, that might be an issue that I can't quantify. Cutting it might short the positive and negative wires that are transmitting power together.

44 volts with 350ma is in the "gray area" where I can't tell you if it's a big deal or ignorable.

If you know you're not pumping PoE on it, then you should be just fine. I've looped back data connections before on purpose when I've been feeling mischievous.

It shouldn't cause any problems, but i'd still rather strip the cable at the end, and cut wire-by-wire. This is the only part where there is a large possibility of contact between them. You have to even the wires up and strip the cables anyways, and losing a cm of cable shouldn't cause much difference.