These issues are new to us (not just on Apple). But I wonder how long they have been know to the NSA.
Unfortunately, Intel knew, too, and didn't bother fixing it in the next 6 generations of their CPUs since they originally admitted the issue with the Intel Core 2.
1) The NSA knew about it and had exploits for it. 2) Google Project Zero spoke with the NSA prior to releasing the advisory.
An exploit for such a pervasive vulnerability represents a susbtantial asset to one intelligence agency. Right up until the enemy discovers and develops the same capability.
I'd bet much smarter people work at Google than the NSA.
Also, the NSA still tapped google for up to 6 years, and might have continued doing so to this day if it weren't for Snowden.
But then again, these weren't in his leaked documents so maybe not.
/s