diff --git a/src/threading/formatters/JSON.cc b/src/threading/formatters/JSON.cc
index 38b8dcc4c6..1ce8f679ba 100644
--- a/src/threading/formatters/JSON.cc
+++ b/src/threading/formatters/JSON.cc
@@ -35,7 +35,10 @@ bool JSON::Describe(ODesc* desc, int num_fields, const Field* const* fields, Val
     }
 
     writer.EndObject();
-    desc->Add(buffer.GetString());
+
+    std::string json{buffer.GetString()};
+    Finalize(json);
+    desc->Add(std::move(json));
 
     return true;
 }
@@ -57,10 +60,25 @@ bool JSON::Describe(ODesc* desc, Value* val, const std::string& name) const {
     BuildJSON(writer, val, name);
     writer.EndObject();
 
-    desc->Add(buffer.GetString());
+    std::string json{buffer.GetString()};
+    Finalize(json);
+    desc->Add(std::move(json));
+
     return true;
 }
 
+void JSON::Finalize(std::string& json) const {
+    // Replace all occurrences of the "\x" marker we may have inserted during
+    // escaping of the JSON input string with the backslash unicode codepoint.
+    static std::string pattern{"[zeek\\\\u005C]"};
+    size_t pos = 0;
+
+    while ( (pos = json.find(pattern, pos)) != std::string::npos ) {
+        json.replace(pos, pattern.length(), "\\u005C");
+        pos += pattern.length();
+    }
+}
+
 Value* JSON::ParseValue(const std::string& s, const std::string& name, TypeTag type, TypeTag subtype) const {
     GetThread()->Error("JSON formatter does not support parsing yet.");
     return nullptr;
diff --git a/src/threading/formatters/JSON.h b/src/threading/formatters/JSON.h
index fca567dcdf..8b274eb8c9 100644
--- a/src/threading/formatters/JSON.h
+++ b/src/threading/formatters/JSON.h
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ public:
 
 private:
     void BuildJSON(zeek::json::detail::NullDoubleWriter& writer, Value* val, const std::string& name = "") const;
+    void Finalize(std::string& json) const;
 
     TimeFormat timestamps;
     bool include_unset_fields;
diff --git a/src/util.cc b/src/util.cc
index 02e17c74f8..84a20afe3f 100644
--- a/src/util.cc
+++ b/src/util.cc
@@ -2242,8 +2242,9 @@ void zeek_strerror_r(int zeek_errno, char* buf, size_t buflen) {
 static string json_escape_byte(char c) {
     char hex[2] = {'0', '0'};
     bytetohex(c, hex);
-
-    string result = "\\x";
+    // Hack: put in place a "marker" that survives JSON-encoding,
+    // that we can then substitute in the resulting JSON.
+    string result = "[zeek\\u005C]x";
     result.append(hex, 2);
 
     return result;