diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 08ba834b9c2c6b9e5ec73a0899d51157bd25b2ac..f5a53747881cf135b6e7d6e80bc0825a3565d1b3 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ v 7.10.0 (unreleased)
   - Fix dots in Wiki slugs causing errors (Stan Hu)
   - Update poltergeist to version 1.6.0 to support PhantomJS 2.0 (Zeger-Jan van de Weg)
   - Fix cross references when usernames, milestones, or project names contain underscores (Stan Hu)
+  - Disable reference creation for comments surrounded by code/preformatted blocks (Stan Hu)
   - enable line wrapping per default and remove the checkbox to toggle it (Hannes Rosenögger)
   - extend the commit calendar to show the actual commits made on a date (Hannes Rosenögger)
   - Fix a link in the patch update guide
diff --git a/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor.rb b/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor.rb
index 5b9772de168fefb8dd0d3699d36635da678fb739..1058d4c43d9b9427da6581000992ff0eab815469 100644
--- a/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor.rb
+++ b/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor.rb
@@ -11,7 +11,13 @@ module Gitlab
     end
 
     def analyze(string, project)
-      parse_references(string.dup, project)
+      text = string.dup
+
+      # Remove preformatted/code blocks so that references are not included
+      text.gsub!(%r{<pre>.*?</pre>|<code>.*?</code>}m) { |match| '' }
+      text.gsub!(%r{^```.*?^```}m) { |match| '' }
+
+      parse_references(text, project)
     end
 
     # Given a valid project, resolve the extracted identifiers of the requested type to
diff --git a/spec/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor_spec.rb b/spec/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor_spec.rb
index 5ebe44f6fb79297f903c7e492819883ddf3567f4..b3f4bb5aeda9137c09206e1409bd0f37da8dd8c8 100644
--- a/spec/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor_spec.rb
+++ b/spec/lib/gitlab/reference_extractor_spec.rb
@@ -50,6 +50,26 @@ describe Gitlab::ReferenceExtractor do
     expect(text).to eq('issue #123 is just the worst, @user')
   end
 
+  it 'extracts no references for <pre>..</pre> blocks' do
+    subject.analyze("<pre>def puts '#1 issue'\nend\n</pre>```", nil)
+    expect(subject.issues).to be_blank
+  end
+
+  it 'extracts no references for <code>..</code> blocks' do
+    subject.analyze("<code>def puts '!1 request'\nend\n</code>```", nil)
+    expect(subject.merge_requests).to be_blank
+  end
+
+  it 'extracts no references for code blocks with language' do
+    subject.analyze("this code:\n```ruby\ndef puts '#1 issue'\nend\n```", nil)
+    expect(subject.issues).to be_blank
+  end
+
+  it 'extracts issue references for invalid code blocks' do
+    subject.analyze('test: ```this one talks about issue #1234```', nil)
+    expect(subject.issues).to eq([{ project: nil, id: '1234' }])
+  end
+
   it 'handles all possible kinds of references' do
     accessors = Gitlab::Markdown::TYPES.map { |t| "#{t}s".to_sym }
     expect(subject).to respond_to(*accessors)