diff --git a/packages/components/package.json b/packages/components/package.json
index 66e6d6d9381..1874ca10475 100644
--- a/packages/components/package.json
+++ b/packages/components/package.json
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
         "@upstash/redis": "^1.22.1",
         "@zilliz/milvus2-sdk-node": "^2.2.24",
         "apify-client": "^2.7.1",
-        "axios": "^0.27.2",
+        "axios": "1.6.2",
         "cheerio": "^1.0.0-rc.12",
         "chromadb": "^1.5.11",
         "cohere-ai": "^6.2.0",
diff --git a/packages/server/package.json b/packages/server/package.json
index f2ec5c098d5..a73159995a9 100644
--- a/packages/server/package.json
+++ b/packages/server/package.json
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@
     "dependencies": {
         "@oclif/core": "^1.13.10",
         "async-mutex": "^0.4.0",
-        "axios": "^0.27.2",
+        "axios": "1.6.2",
         "cors": "^2.8.5",
         "crypto-js": "^4.1.1",
         "dotenv": "^16.0.0",
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@
         "mysql": "^2.18.1",
         "pg": "^8.11.1",
         "reflect-metadata": "^0.1.13",
+        "sanitize-html": "^2.11.0",
         "socket.io": "^4.6.1",
         "sqlite3": "^5.1.6",
         "typeorm": "^0.3.6",
@@ -71,6 +72,7 @@
         "@types/cors": "^2.8.12",
         "@types/crypto-js": "^4.1.1",
         "@types/multer": "^1.4.7",
+        "@types/sanitize-html": "^2.9.5",
         "concurrently": "^7.1.0",
         "nodemon": "^2.0.15",
         "oclif": "^3",
diff --git a/packages/server/src/index.ts b/packages/server/src/index.ts
index 805a0fec679..2ab454ad746 100644
--- a/packages/server/src/index.ts
+++ b/packages/server/src/index.ts
@@ -58,6 +58,7 @@ import { CachePool } from './CachePool'
 import { ICommonObject, IMessage, INodeOptionsValue } from 'flowise-components'
 import { createRateLimiter, getRateLimiter, initializeRateLimiter } from './utils/rateLimit'
 import { addAPIKey, compareKeys, deleteAPIKey, getApiKey, getAPIKeys, updateAPIKey } from './utils/apiKey'
+import { sanitizeMiddleware } from './utils/XSS'
 import axios from 'axios'
 import { Client } from 'langchainhub'
 import { parsePrompt } from './utils/hub'
@@ -118,9 +119,15 @@ export class App {
         // Allow access from *
         this.app.use(cors())
 
+        // Switch off the default 'X-Powered-By: Express' header
+        this.app.disable('x-powered-by')
+
         // Add the expressRequestLogger middleware to log all requests
         this.app.use(expressRequestLogger)
 
+        // Add the sanitizeMiddleware to guard against XSS
+        this.app.use(sanitizeMiddleware)
+
         if (process.env.FLOWISE_USERNAME && process.env.FLOWISE_PASSWORD) {
             const username = process.env.FLOWISE_USERNAME
             const password = process.env.FLOWISE_PASSWORD
@@ -967,6 +974,12 @@ export class App {
         // Download file from assistant
         this.app.post('/api/v1/openai-assistants-file', async (req: Request, res: Response) => {
             const filePath = path.join(getUserHome(), '.flowise', 'openai-assistant', req.body.fileName)
+            //raise error if file path is not absolute
+            if (!path.isAbsolute(filePath)) return res.status(500).send(`Invalid file path`)
+            //raise error if file path contains '..'
+            if (filePath.includes('..')) return res.status(500).send(`Invalid file path`)
+            //only return from the .flowise openai-assistant folder
+            if (!(filePath.includes('.flowise') && filePath.includes('openai-assistant'))) return res.status(500).send(`Invalid file path`)
             res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename=' + path.basename(filePath))
             const fileStream = fs.createReadStream(filePath)
             fileStream.pipe(res)
diff --git a/packages/server/src/utils/XSS.ts b/packages/server/src/utils/XSS.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..3e96e6c8f54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/server/src/utils/XSS.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+import { Request, Response, NextFunction } from 'express'
+import sanitizeHtml from 'sanitize-html'
+
+export function sanitizeMiddleware(req: Request, res: Response, next: NextFunction): void {
+    // decoding is necessary as the url is encoded by the browser
+    const decodedURI = decodeURI(req.url)
+    req.url = sanitizeHtml(decodedURI)
+    for (let p in req.query) {
+        req.query[p] = sanitizeHtml(req.query[p] as string)
+    }
+
+    next()
+}