The issue is related to a NULL pointer dereference in the Linux kernel's lpfc component. This occurs when an FC link down transition happens while PLOGIs are outstanding to fabric well-known addresses, resulting in outstanding ABTS requests. The Link down processing leads to ABTS requests for outstanding ELS requests, and the Abort WQEs are sent before the driver sets the link state to down. In some conditions, the driver may auto-complete the ELSs, and if the link comes up, the Abort completions may reference an invalid structure. The estimated number of potentially affected devices worldwide is not provided. There is no information about real-world incidents where this issue was exploited.