AWS Amplify issue with Cloudfront

Images in WebP format with CloudFront
In this blog post, there is a simple and performant solution for image optimization using serverless components such as Amazon CloudFront, Amazon S3 and AWS Lambda, so as to serve the most optimized image format (JPEG,WebP, or AVIF) to the user.

**Serving S3 images directly from NextJS application **
You can serve images directly from an S3 bucket in your NextJS application without using CloudFront. However, you'll need to configure your S3 bucket for public access or create a presigned URL for each image. This approach has some limitations, such as increased latency, lack of caching, and potential security risks if not configured correctly.

Necessity of CloudFront for S3 images
While not strictly necessary, using CloudFront for serving S3 images is recommended for several reasons:

• Caching: CloudFront caches content at Edge locations, reducing latency and bandwidth costs.
• Security: CloudFront provides additional security features like HTTPS, field-level encryption, and geo-restriction.

WAF and CloudFront necessity with AWS Amplify and NextJS:

• From a security perspective, using a WAF (Web Application Firewall) in front of your application is highly recommended to protect against common web vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), etc.
• CloudFront can provide additional security features like HTTPS enforcement, geo-restriction, security for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.

Security impact without WAF and CloudFront:

• Without a WAF, your application will be directly exposed to potential security threats and malicious traffic.
• Without CloudFront, you'll miss out on benefits like caching, DDoS protection, and content delivery optimization.
• It's generally recommended to use a WAF (like AWS WAF) and CloudFront for production-grade web applications hosted on AWS Amplify, especially if you expect significant traffic or have stringent security requirements.