diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 5b4e81de..a6efb6b2 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+  - added obfuscation of protocol-string in {mailto} when using hex-
+    encoding (bharat, messju)
   - enhanced auto-generated filenames for templates_c and cache (messju)
   - add 'nonstd' to escape modifier for escaping non-std chars,
     such as ms doc quote (Monte)
diff --git a/libs/plugins/function.mailto.php b/libs/plugins/function.mailto.php
index f7d1dd2a..6def8252 100644
--- a/libs/plugins/function.mailto.php
+++ b/libs/plugins/function.mailto.php
@@ -127,7 +127,8 @@ function smarty_function_mailto($params, &$smarty)
             $text_encode .= '&#x' . bin2hex($text[$x]).';';
         }
 
-        return '<a href="mailto:'.$address_encode.'" '.$extra.'>'.$text_encode.'</a>';
+        $mailto = "&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108;&#116;&#111;&#58;";
+        return '<a href="'.$mailto.$address_encode.'" '.$extra.'>'.$text_encode.'</a>';
 
     } else {
         // no encoding