The present invention provides a method and apparatus for prioritizing encrypted traffic at an intermediate node within a communications network. The present invention provides a method and an intermediate node that prioritizes the processing of a packet based on one or more size-based criteria, the packet comprising one or more headers and an encrypted payload. The one or more size-based criteria are satisfied whenever a size of the received packet is equal to a packet size limit, the size of the received packet is less than or equal to the packet size limit, the size of the received packet is less than the packet size limit, or the size of the received packet is within a range of the packet size limit.