What it looks like
A subdomain on your domain has a CNAME pointing at a cloudfront.net target, and loading it returns Amazon CloudFront's unclaimed page rather than a working site. The visible signature is text along the lines of "ERROR: The request could not be satisfied".
Both signals are needed. A CNAME pointing at Amazon CloudFront is completely normal when the service is in use. It only matters when the target is no longer claimed.
Why it can be taken over
A deleted CloudFront distribution frees its alternate domain names, which can then be attached to another distribution.
What an attacker gets
- Content served from your subdomain, on your domain, usually with a valid certificate Amazon CloudFront issues automatically.
- A phishing address that passes every check a cautious person would run, because it genuinely is your domain.
- Access to any cookie your main site scopes to the parent domain, which can include session data.
How to fix it
Remove the record, or attach the domain to a current distribution you control.
Full removal steps for any DNS provider are in the dangling record guide.
Stopping the next one
These appear whenever a hosted service is trialled and dropped, so one cleanup does not settle it. The habit worth building is deleting the DNS record in the same sitting as the cancellation, because those are separate actions and only one is on anyone's mind.