CloudFront Geo Restrictions Not Working

The geo-restriction feature in Amazon CloudFront is designed to block requests from specific geographic locations based on the IP address of the client making the request. However, it's important to understand that IP addresses can be shared or dynamically assigned, and some IP addresses can be associated with multiple geographic locations, including proxy servers or VPN services. This can lead to situations where some traffic from a restricted location can still slip through.

To effectively block unwanted traffic from restricted geographic locations with CloudFront, you should consider a multi-layered approach.

1. First, implement IP blacklisting and rate limiting rules to block known offending IP addresses and limit the impact of unwanted traffic.
2. Additionally, deploy a Web Application Firewall (WAF) solution like AWS WAF to inspect and filter traffic based on granular rules beyond just IP addresses.
3. Continuously monitor your traffic patterns and adapt your blocking and filtering rules as needed to keep up with changes in IP assignments and traffic sources.

Combining these measures with CloudFront's geo-restriction feature can provide a more comprehensive solution to mitigate unwanted traffic from restricted locations.

Some useful resources:

• Restricting the geographic distribution of your content
• How AWS WAF works with Amazon CloudFront features