diff --git a/lbry/conf.py b/lbry/conf.py
index 0c2d01252..7b81e528e 100644
--- a/lbry/conf.py
+++ b/lbry/conf.py
@@ -325,7 +325,7 @@ class ConfigFileAccess:
         cls = type(self.configuration)
         with open(self.path, 'r') as config_file:
             raw = config_file.read()
-        serialized = yaml.load(raw) or {}
+        serialized = yaml.full_load(raw) or {}
         for key, value in serialized.items():
             attr = getattr(cls, key, None)
             if attr is None:
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 08de22be3..462e30fc3 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ setup(
         'msgpack==0.6.1',
         'prometheus_client==0.7.1',
         'ecdsa==0.13.3',
-        'pyyaml==4.2b1',
+        'pyyaml==5.3.1',
         'docopt==0.6.2',
         'hachoir',
         'multidict==4.6.1',