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Senate candidate says his phone was hacked, tweeting out pornographic images

Posted at 6:38 PM, Aug 07, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-08 08:39:22-04

Talk about a crazy Monday. 

Lewd porn photos seen by possibly thousands of an Arizona Senate candidate’s followers in the form of retweets.

Steve Weichert, who is running for District 17’s State Senate Seat in the 2018 election told ABC15 his twitter account was somehow hacked.

“I use twitter as my lifeline to the people that's why this is so disconcerting,” said Weichert.

Weichert was taking his kids to school when he discovered what he calls an avalanche of porn photos.

“All of a sudden I just felt my phone blowing up. Somebody sent me a text saying ‘What are you doing?’ and I'm like ‘What? What are you talking about?’"

That’s when Weichert was sent a screen shot of his Twitter account.

“I'm going What? It was a bad Monday,” exclaimed Weichert.

Weichert told ABC15 what followed was complete chaos between deleting retweets and trying to reset passwords as more kept popping up.

“It was kind of like that scene from I Love Lucy with the conveyer belt and the chocolate. Well, that's kind of how this was with pornographic images,” described Weichert.

Weichert posted an apology to his followers explaining the breach and light heartedly blaming “Darn those Russians”.

“As a politician, you want to put your best foot forward in the community and sending out those images is not the way to put your best foot forward,” said Weichert.
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The candidate has since changed all his passwords.

We spoke with Data Doctors about the breach. 

Ken Coburn with Data Doctors tells us they recommend a two-step verification on all possible internet accounts as the best form of protection.

Meanwhile, Weichert said he’s filing a police report and has a few words for the culprit.
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“Stop. This is my integrity on the line. We need to stop trying to attack politicians.”