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'For the lulz' — Hackers explain why they took over the NFL's Twitter account

A hacker group named Peggle Crew hacked the National Football League's Twitter account on Tuesday and announced that the commissioner had died.

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"We regret to inform our fans that our commissioner, Roger Goodell, has passed away. He was 57. #RIP," the tweet read, which was quickly shared across Twitter.

In truth, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is alive and well.

Roger Goodell
Jamie Squire/Getty Images

The hackers also managed to rattle off a couple more tweets before those were deleted, and the NFL got back its account.

"We got into a social media employee's email and found the account password there," one of the hackers told Tech Insider over email. "Not going to elaborate further."

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The hacker provided screenshots from inside the NFL's account which showed direct message conversations and Twitter analytics. When asked why the account was compromised, the hacker said it was "for the lulz."

The Twitter account of one of the group's members, @IDissEverything, has since been suspended, but the hacker told a follower the NFL's password was "olsen3culvercam88" — a weak password that could be easily figured out with software tools like John the Ripper.

The NFL's Director of Social Content did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This isn't the first time this sort of thing happened: In 2013 for example, the Associated Press' account was compromised, which a hacker used to falsely report explosions at the White House that had injured the president. And "Peggle Crew" specifically took over another Twitter user's account back in February: Beatles legend Ringo Starr.

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Here are the tweets sent through the NFL account:

roger goodell nfl tweets
Twitter

This post was updated on Jun. 7, 2016 at 12:01 p.m. PDT with additional reporting.

Cybersecurity NFL Twitter
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