A network device receives a packet at a network interface and determines whether the packet represents control traffic. The network device also determines whether the packet is received from a privileged node. To achieve this, a source address is extracted from the packet, a query of the source address is performed in an address database, and a node status attribute associated with the source address is returned from the address database. If the packet represents control traffic and is received from a privileged node, the network device may modify one or more attributes of associated with the packet. These attributes may include a traffic class, drop precedence, or bandwidth restriction. Packets that represent control traffic may be placed in a priority queue for further processing based upon their modified attributes.