This is a very poor journalism at the best. I would not bother myself with trusting how it will have any affect on the price, or anything else for that matter.
If bitcoin private keys would to be easily crackable - don't you think someone would take satoshi's coins already ? It's just created to spread FUD , ignore it.
I think it is standard practice to use eye catching sentences in journalism so people get initial interest in reading further. So its not created to spread FUD, but to get as much reads as possible. Pretty standard.
But it surprises me they were able to obtain 18 000 wallet access, seems brain wallets are popular even though everywhere not recommended to use with weak phrasses.
its because once there are millions of people using bitcoin and not everyone is a computer expert, alot of people want something as easy to use or understand as things like paypal.
wrong i know. but thats how the real world works.
some of the novices believe that if there is such thing as a brain wallet it must has some basic security otherwise its useless and not worth offering. so they overly trust that its secure because its available and popular.
its important to learn the fundementals
using the most basic small word sentences of 6 words
EG "using this and you will lose"
1 in 15625000000000000
using the most basic small word sentences of 12 words
"if you are using these words you will be hacked i promise"
1 in 244140625000000000000000000000000
using the standard common longer word sentences of 12 words
"suddenly increasing entropy should multiply security protection against bruteforce related hacking attempts"
1 in 1000000000000000000000000000000000000
using random and uncommon words with no sentence structure of 12 words
"amphibology prosopagnosia umbriferous doryphore breatharian criticaster martlet paludal labarum illywhacker gasconade etui"
1 in 3138428376721000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 chance
though the 18000 wallets were using far less than 12 words. and not as random and uncommon as they would think..
so 12-20 random/uncommon words is stronger. its important that its not small common words and important that its not a sentence structure/quote.