diff --git a/django/core/serializers/pyyaml.py b/django/core/serializers/pyyaml.py
index c443b63bc9..a9f4575823 100644
--- a/django/core/serializers/pyyaml.py
+++ b/django/core/serializers/pyyaml.py
@@ -51,6 +51,6 @@ def Deserializer(stream_or_string, **options):
         stream = StringIO(stream_or_string)
     else:
         stream = stream_or_string
-    for obj in PythonDeserializer(yaml.load(stream), **options):
+    for obj in PythonDeserializer(yaml.safe_load(stream), **options):
         yield obj
 
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.4.txt b/docs/releases/1.4.txt
index 254e85197d..c8e476263b 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.4.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.4.txt
@@ -743,6 +743,16 @@ you can easily achieve the same by overriding the `open` method, e.g.::
         def open(self, name, mode='rb'):
             return Spam(open(self.path(name), mode))
 
+YAML deserializer now uses ``yaml.safe_load``
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+``yaml.load`` is able to construct any Python object, which may trigger
+arbitrary code execution if you process a YAML document that comes from an
+untrusted source. This feature isn't necessary for Django's YAML deserializer,
+whose primary use is to load fixtures consisting of simple objects. Even though
+fixtures are trusted data, for additional security, the YAML deserializer now
+uses ``yaml.safe_load``.
+
 .. _deprecated-features-1.4:
 
 Features deprecated in 1.4
diff --git a/tests/modeltests/serializers/tests.py b/tests/modeltests/serializers/tests.py
index 5e5a4b333a..99c065aeaf 100644
--- a/tests/modeltests/serializers/tests.py
+++ b/tests/modeltests/serializers/tests.py
@@ -425,7 +425,7 @@ else:
         @staticmethod
         def _validate_output(serial_str):
             try:
-                yaml.load(StringIO(serial_str))
+                yaml.safe_load(StringIO(serial_str))
             except Exception:
                 return False
             else:
@@ -435,7 +435,7 @@ else:
         def _get_pk_values(serial_str):
             ret_list = []
             stream = StringIO(serial_str)
-            for obj_dict in yaml.load(stream):
+            for obj_dict in yaml.safe_load(stream):
                 ret_list.append(obj_dict["pk"])
             return ret_list
 
@@ -443,10 +443,10 @@ else:
         def _get_field_values(serial_str, field_name):
             ret_list = []
             stream = StringIO(serial_str)
-            for obj_dict in yaml.load(stream):
+            for obj_dict in yaml.safe_load(stream):
                 if "fields" in obj_dict and field_name in obj_dict["fields"]:
                     field_value = obj_dict["fields"][field_name]
-                    # yaml.load will return non-string objects for some
+                    # yaml.safe_load will return non-string objects for some
                     # of the fields we are interested in, this ensures that
                     # everything comes back as a string
                     if isinstance(field_value, basestring):