More info:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1120355/pg1

From that description it appears that it may only apply to private keys containing mostly (or only?) alphanumeric characters?

And there is still a possibility it is a hoax.

I read else where that the NSA expects to break AES-256 by 2018 any way. That appears to unsubstantiated.

Wild conjecture is the other potential damning outcome is if it is shown that this was likely a planted security hole. That could have ramifications on why does Bitcoin use what may be potentially an insecure form of double-hashing in that if so then maybe that was a planted weakness.