Amazon CloudFront announces mutual TLS support for origins

Amazon CloudFront announces support for mutual TLS authentication (mTLS) for origins, a security protocol that enables customers to verify that requests to their origin servers come only from their authorized CloudFront distributions using TLS certificates. This certificate-based authentication provides cryptographic verification of CloudFront's identity, eliminating the need for customers to manage custom security controls.

Previously, verifying that requests came from CloudFront distributions required customers to build and maintain custom authentication solutions like shared secret headers or IP allow-lists, particularly for public or externally hosted origins. These approaches required ongoing operational overhead to rotate secrets, update allow-lists, and maintain custom code. Now with origin mTLS support, customers can implement a standardized, certificate-based authentication approach that eliminates this operational burden. This enables organizations to enforce strict authentication for their proprietary content, ensuring that only verified CloudFront distributions can establish connections to backend infrastructure ranging from AWS origins and on-premises servers to third-party cloud providers and external CDNs. Customers can leverage client certificates issued by AWS Private Certificate Authority or third-party private Certificate Authorities, which they import through AWS Certificate Manager.

Customers can configure origin mTLS using the AWS Management Console, CLI, SDK, CDK, or CloudFormation. Origin mTLS is supported for all origins that support mutual TLS on AWS such as Application Load Balancer and API Gateway, as well as on-premises and custom origins. There is no additional charge for origin mTLS. Origin mTLS is also available in the Business and Premium flat-rate pricing plans. For detailed implementation guidance and best practices, visit the CloudFront origin mutual TLS documentation.