ADDITIONAL SYSTEM INFORMATION :
Linux 64bit, jdk1.8.0_172


A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
When getMethod is invoked with a String object which null for it's value field, the runtime crashes.

REGRESSION : Last worked in version 8u172

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
Munge a string's value field to null. Invoke getMethod with that string as the parameter.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
NullPointerException as in Java 9
ACTUAL -
Crash, core dump

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.lang.reflect.*;


public class Bug {

    String f;

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Bug b = new Bug();
        b.f = (String) mungedString();
        b.trigger();

    }

    public void trigger() throws Exception {
        Method m = Runtime.class.getMethod(f, new Class[]{String.class});

    }


     static Object mungedString() throws Exception {
      Field[] fields = String.class.getDeclaredFields();
      Field field = null;
      for(Field f: fields) {
          if (f.getName().equals("value"))
              field = f;
      }
      field.setAccessible(true);

      Field modifiersField = Field.class.getDeclaredField("modifiers");
      modifiersField.setAccessible(true);
      modifiersField.setInt(field, field.getModifiers() & ~Modifier.FINAL);
      Object s = new String();
     field.set(s, null);
      return s;

   }

}

---------- END SOURCE ----------

FREQUENCY : always