diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converter_utils/docx/pre_process.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converter_utils/docx/pre_process.py
index d6fa8db69..4481d9720 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converter_utils/docx/pre_process.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converter_utils/docx/pre_process.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import zipfile
 from io import BytesIO
 from typing import BinaryIO
-from xml.etree import ElementTree as ET
+from defusedxml import ElementTree as ET
 
 from bs4 import BeautifulSoup, Tag