A method and apparatus provides a communication connection between a user equipment and a network entity including a plurality of radio bearers having security keys. A connection reconfiguration message is received (1002), which identifies bearer specific changes to be made to a subset of radio bearers including less than all of the plurality of radio bearers, that impact the security keys being used by the subset of radio bearers, where the connection reconfiguration message includes a bearer identification field that identifies the radio bearers included in the subset and a chaining counter. The requested changes are applied (1004) to the subset of radio bearers associated with the bearer identification field without resetting the communication connection with the communication network.