Normally when we hear about a security flaw we read the initial write-up that doesn't give anything away and we note who or how it was discovered. It seems most are discovered by researchers who do this for a living. So generally it takes a while before the exploitation has been used in the wild and has grown in usage. Usually a security patch is released before or shortly after any significant pickup in usage occurs.
Over the last couple of years, with Java it seems like it has shown a pattern of repeated early stage wide spread exploitation. Something about that seems very different from the past.
