DHS' evolving cyber role engenders growing confidence, and ongoing concerns

The Department of Homeland Security has sharpened the focus of its cybersecurity efforts with increasingly positive results, lawmakers, tech companies and other industry sources said in recent conversations, but institutional challenges are still apparent.

And, DHS' cyber efforts never take place in a vacuum: The department's cybersecurity initiatives likely will be overshadowed by the unrelated debate over immigration -- and President Trump's extraordinary rebuke of DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week -- for the foreseeable future.

In fact, first-ever DHS...