Profile Applicability:

  • Level 1

Description:

This control ensures that Amazon CloudFront distributions have geo restrictions (geoblocking) enabled to control access to content based on the geographic location of the viewer. Geo restrictions prevent users from specific countries or regions from accessing your content, helping organizations comply with licensing agreements, export control laws, and regional content regulations.

Rationale:

Enabling geo restrictions in CloudFront helps prevent unauthorized access or distribution of content in restricted regions. It is particularly important for organizations delivering region-specific applications, streaming services, or regulated content. Geo restrictions also reduce attack surfaces by blocking traffic from countries known for malicious activities or where business operations are not intended.

Impact:

  • Positive Impact:Helps comply with geographic access control, data protection, and export regulations.Reduces potential attack surface by blocking unwanted traffic sources.Enhances performance by minimizing requests from non-target regions.

  • Negative Impact:Users in blocked regions will not be able to access content, which may affect global reach if misconfigured.


Default Value:

By default, geo restrictions are disabled for CloudFront distributions. All geographic regions can access the content unless explicitly restricted.

Pre-Requisite:

  • IAM permissions required: cloudfront:GetDistributionConfig and cloudfront:UpdateDistribution.

  • Knowledge of the target countries or regions where access should be allowed or denied.

Remediation:

Test Plan 

Using AWS Console:

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.

  2. Navigate to Amazon CloudFront → Distributions.

  3. Select a distribution and go to the Restrictions tab.

  4. Under Geo restriction, verify that one of the following options is configured:

    • Whitelist: Access is allowed only from the specified countries.

    • Blacklist: Access is denied from the specified countries.

  5. If the geo restriction setting is None, the distribution is non-compliant.

Implementation Plan 

Using AWS Console:

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.

  2. Navigate to Amazon CloudFront → Distributions.

  3. Select the target distribution.

  4. Choose the Restrictions tab and click Edit.

  5. Under Geo restriction, select one of the following options:

    • Whitelist: Allow access only from specific countries.

    • Blacklist: Block access from specific countries.

  6. In the Countries section, add or remove countries according to your compliance or security policy.

    • Example: For blocking access from all regions except the U.S. and Canada, select Whitelist and add “United States” and “Canada.”

  7. Click Save changes.

  8. Wait for CloudFront to propagate the changes across edge locations (usually within a few minutes).

Backout Plan:

Using AWS Console:

  1. If enabling geo restrictions results in unintended blocking of legitimate users, revert the configuration:

  • Go to CloudFront → Distributions → Restrictions → Edit.

  • Select None under Geo restriction and click Save changes.

  1. Alternatively, modify the country list to include newly required regions while maintaining compliance requirements.


References:

  • Amazon CloudFront Geo Restriction (Geoblocking) Documentation

  • AWS CloudFront Security Best Practices

  • AWS Security Best Practices Whitepaper