diff --git a/dagger-common/src/main/java/com/gotocompany/dagger/common/serde/proto/deserialization/ProtoDeserializer.java b/dagger-common/src/main/java/com/gotocompany/dagger/common/serde/proto/deserialization/ProtoDeserializer.java
index 5cf61eb90..6da14e54c 100644
--- a/dagger-common/src/main/java/com/gotocompany/dagger/common/serde/proto/deserialization/ProtoDeserializer.java
+++ b/dagger-common/src/main/java/com/gotocompany/dagger/common/serde/proto/deserialization/ProtoDeserializer.java
@@ -58,8 +58,13 @@ public boolean isEndOfStream(Row nextElement) {
     @Override
     public Row deserialize(ConsumerRecord<byte[], byte[]> consumerRecord) {
         Descriptors.Descriptor descriptor = getProtoParser();
+        byte[] value = consumerRecord.value();
+        if (value == null) {
+            LOGGER.warn("Record value / byteArray is NULL! " + protoClassName);
+            return createDefaultInvalidRow(DynamicMessage.getDefaultInstance(descriptor));
+        }
         try {
-            DynamicMessage proto = DynamicMessage.parseFrom(descriptor, consumerRecord.value());
+            DynamicMessage proto = DynamicMessage.parseFrom(descriptor, value);
             return addTimestampFieldToRow(proto);
         } catch (DescriptorNotFoundException e) {
             throw new DescriptorNotFoundException(e);
diff --git a/dagger-core/build.gradle b/dagger-core/build.gradle
index daab72661..3105a8d71 100644
--- a/dagger-core/build.gradle
+++ b/dagger-core/build.gradle
@@ -103,8 +103,8 @@ dependencies {
         exclude group: "io.grpc"
     }
     dependenciesJar 'org.apache.flink:flink-connector-kafka_2.11:' + flinkVersion
-    dependenciesJar 'com.google.protobuf:protobuf-java:3.23.2'
-    dependenciesJar 'com.google.protobuf:protobuf-java-util:3.1.0'
+    dependenciesJar 'com.google.protobuf:protobuf-java:3.25.3'
+    dependenciesJar 'com.google.protobuf:protobuf-java-util:3.25.3'
     dependenciesJar 'org.influxdb:influxdb-java:2.8'
     dependenciesJar 'org.elasticsearch.client:elasticsearch-rest-client:6.6.1'
     dependenciesJar 'com.google.cloud.bigtable:bigtable-hbase-2.x:2.10.0'
diff --git a/version.txt b/version.txt
index 34a83616b..26acbf080 100644
--- a/version.txt
+++ b/version.txt
@@ -1 +1 @@
-0.12.1
+0.12.2