Techniques for deriving message counts based at least in part on a locally stored message count and at least a portion of a message count received from a remote network node are disclosed. The message counts can relate to downlink (DL) non-access stratum (NAS) counts. In one aspect, a device can receive a number of least significant bits of the DL NAS count in a handover message. The device can derive a DL NAS count by utilizing a remaining portion of most significant bits of a locally stored DL NAS count, and can determine whether to increment or decrement the most significant bits based at least in part on a parameter to handle cases where the least significant bits of the locally stored DL NAS count have wrapped due to overflow and/or underflow.