Maintaining communication between network nodes for which a packet attack

A method for mitigating a packet attack, comprising: Detecting (602) a packet attack, which relates to a first Internet Protocol-capable device; and Sending (605) based on the detection of the packet attack, a first packet (805) from the first Internet Protocol-capable device to a second Internet Protocol-capable device with which the first Internet Protocol-capable device has replaced a plurality of heartbeat-related packets which comprise a series of keep-alive packets (801, 803); wherein the first packet (805) indicating that the second Internet Protocol-capable device to suspend the sending further heartbeat-related packets to the first Internet Protocol-capable device.