The author just collected a bunch of correlations and then decided what the cause was. I've been doing this kind of work for many, many years. Just because it looks like it's caused by one thing, doesn't mean it is.
Correlation is not causation. That's not just a pithy quip, there's a reason why it's important to actually find causation.
edit: Also, someone commented here "it was an irrelevant cf WAF rule, we disabled it". Assuming honesty, seems to confirm that the author was indeed right.