diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index ee88e11046803..ba7dbe1f25de9 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@
     <avro.mapred.classifier>hadoop2</avro.mapred.classifier>
     <aws.kinesis.client.version>1.12.0</aws.kinesis.client.version>
     <!-- Should be consistent with Kinesis client dependency -->
-    <aws.java.sdk.version>1.11.655</aws.java.sdk.version>
+    <aws.java.sdk.version>1.12.676</aws.java.sdk.version>
     <!-- the producer is used in tests -->
     <aws.kinesis.producer.version>0.12.8</aws.kinesis.producer.version>
     <!--  org.apache.httpcomponents/httpclient-->
@@ -211,8 +211,8 @@
 
     <!-- Some UI tests require Chrome and Chrome driver installed so those tests are disabled by default. -->
     <test.default.exclude.tags>org.apache.spark.tags.ChromeUITest</test.default.exclude.tags>
-    <test.exclude.tags></test.exclude.tags>
-    <test.include.tags></test.include.tags>
+    <test.exclude.tags/>
+    <test.include.tags/>
 
     <!-- Package to use when relocating shaded classes. -->
     <spark.shade.packageName>org.sparkproject</spark.shade.packageName>
@@ -258,7 +258,7 @@
       things breaking.
     -->
     <spark.test.home>${session.executionRootDirectory}</spark.test.home>
-    <spark.test.webdriver.chrome.driver></spark.test.webdriver.chrome.driver>
+    <spark.test.webdriver.chrome.driver/>
 
     <CodeCacheSize>1g</CodeCacheSize>
     <!-- Needed for consistent times -->
@@ -2843,7 +2843,7 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore></ignore>
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
                 <pluginExecution>
@@ -2856,7 +2856,7 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore></ignore>
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
                 <pluginExecution>
@@ -2869,7 +2869,7 @@
                     </goals>
                   </pluginExecutionFilter>
                   <action>
-                    <ignore></ignore>
+                    <ignore/>
                   </action>
                 </pluginExecution>
               </pluginExecutions>
@@ -3052,7 +3052,7 @@
             </goals>
             <configuration>
               <target>
-                <mkdir dir="${project.build.directory}/tmp" />
+                <mkdir dir="${project.build.directory}/tmp"/>
               </target>
             </configuration>
           </execution>