diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index ecfa993b..7803db00 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -25,14 +25,14 @@
         <dependency>
             <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
             <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>
-            <version>2.10.5</version>
+            <version>2.12.6</version>
             <scope>compile</scope>
         </dependency>
         <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.fasterxml.jackson.core/jackson-databind -->
         <dependency>
             <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
             <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
-            <version>2.10.5.1</version>
+            <version>2.12.6.1</version>
             <scope>compile</scope>
         </dependency>
         <dependency>
diff --git a/src/main/java/com/splunk/hecclient/Event.java b/src/main/java/com/splunk/hecclient/Event.java
index 20ec028c..0a21ebcd 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/splunk/hecclient/Event.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/splunk/hecclient/Event.java
@@ -23,7 +23,9 @@
 import org.slf4j.*;
 
 import java.io.*;
+import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.TimeZone;
 
 /**
  * Event is an abstract class that represents a bare bones implementation of a Splunk Event. Every event that arrives
@@ -48,7 +50,9 @@ public abstract class Event {
     static {
         jsonMapper = new ObjectMapper();
         jsonMapper.registerModule(new com.splunk.kafka.connect.JacksonStructModule());
-        jsonMapper.setDateFormat(StdDateFormat.instance);
+        SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ");
+        df.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("UTC"));
+        jsonMapper.setDateFormat(df);
     }
 
     protected static final Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Event.class);