 <p>Simply declare the desired version in you POM where you specify the surefire plugin.</p> <p>As I recall, Maven 3 will actually complain if you don't explicitly specify the desired version for each plugin.</p> <p>E.g:</p> <pre><code>&lt;plugin&gt; &lt;artifactId&gt;maven-surefire-plugin&lt;/artifactId&gt; &lt;version&gt;X.X.X&lt;/version&gt; &lt;/plugin&gt; </code></pre>