In April 2022, about four months after Kazakhstan’s government violently cracked down on nationwide protests, cybersecurity researchers discovered that authorities in the country were deploying spyware on smartphones to eavesdrop on citizens. The tool wasn’t developed by Kazakhstan, nor was it purchased from Israel or other countries typically associated with spyware. Instead, researchers linked it to RCS Labs, a relatively unknown Italian firm that has been operating since 1992.  The spyware,...