diff --git a/dev-support/docker/Dockerfile b/dev-support/docker/Dockerfile
index 9cb3b0174d0..f8bcd08fa81 100644
--- a/dev-support/docker/Dockerfile
+++ b/dev-support/docker/Dockerfile
@@ -73,9 +73,9 @@ ENV LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=en_US:en LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
 #
 
 FROM BASE_IMAGE AS SPOTBUGS_DOWNLOAD_IMAGE
-ENV SPOTBUGS_VERSION '4.2.1'
+ENV SPOTBUGS_VERSION '3.1.12'
 ENV SPOTBUGS_URL "https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/com/github/spotbugs/spotbugs/${SPOTBUGS_VERSION}/spotbugs-${SPOTBUGS_VERSION}.tgz"
-ENV SPOTBUGS_SHA256 '4d6f5f68da8ddf037bc82f0146b6e6caff4fc5872b9cd511c1e6136c680093a4'
+ENV SPOTBUGS_SHA256 '9c475d6c7096ed7af783e04dc2db40462145291de75a80029391600b6eb2d401'
 SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-o", "pipefail", "-c"]
 RUN curl --location --fail --silent --show-error --output /tmp/spotbugs.tgz "${SPOTBUGS_URL}" && \
   echo "${SPOTBUGS_SHA256} */tmp/spotbugs.tgz" | sha256sum -c -
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 69c24adab00..2e4ca356ab2 100755
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -647,14 +647,6 @@
             <xmlOutput>true</xmlOutput>
             <effort>Max</effort>
           </configuration>
-          <dependencies>
-          <!-- overwrite dependency on spotbugs if you want to specify the version of spotbugs -->
-            <dependency>
-              <groupId>com.github.spotbugs</groupId>
-              <artifactId>spotbugs</artifactId>
-              <version>${spotbugs.version}</version>
-            </dependency>
-          </dependencies>
         </plugin>
         <plugin>
           <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
@@ -1501,8 +1493,8 @@
     <maven.warbucks.version>1.1.0</maven.warbucks.version>
     <os.maven.version>1.5.0.Final</os.maven.version>
     <findbugs-annotations.version>1.3.9-1</findbugs-annotations.version>
-    <spotbugs.version>4.2.1</spotbugs.version>
-    <spotbugs.maven.version>4.2.0</spotbugs.maven.version>
+    <spotbugs.version>3.1.12</spotbugs.version>
+    <spotbugs.maven.version>3.1.12.2</spotbugs.maven.version>
     <surefire.version>3.0.0-M4</surefire.version>
     <wagon.ssh.version>2.12</wagon.ssh.version>
     <xml.maven.version>1.0.1</xml.maven.version>