The White House and the State Department on Monday widely condemned Wikileaks for the release of classified documents. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the disclosure "an attack on the international community."

In a Monday press briefing, Clinton said the State Department is "taking aggressive steps" to identify and hold responsible the people who leaked the documents.

"I have directed that specific actions be taken at the State Department, in addition to new security safeguards at the Department of Defense and elsewhere to protect State Department information so that this kind of breach cannot and does not ever happen again," Clinton said.

Clinton also took issue with those who applauded Wikileaks for exposing government information. "There is nothing laudable about endangering innocent people, and there is nothing brave about sabotaging the peaceful relations between nations on which our common security depends," she said. "There have been examples in history in which official conduct has been made public in the name of exposing wrongdoings or misdeeds. This is not one of those cases."

Clinton reiterated what the White House said Sunday; these documents, or cables, are the work of U.S. diplomats, and the people with whom diplomats speak must be confident that discussions with American officials will be kept secure.

"These conversations also depend on trust and confidence," Clinton said. "For example, if an anti-corruption activist shares information about official misconduct, or a social worker passes along documentation of sexual violence, revealing that person's identity could have serious repercussions: imprisonment, torture, even death."

People must be able to have candid, private conversations, Clinton said. "Whether it's law or journalism, finance or medicine or academia or running a small business – people rely on confidential communications to do their jobs," she said.

Public debates are "one of the greatest strengths of our democracy … but stealing confidential documents and then releasing them without regard for the consequences does not serve the public good, and it is not the way to engage in a healthy debate," Clinton said.

Secretary Clinton, however, was confident that U.S. relations with other countries have not been permanently tarnished. "I can tell you that in my conversations, at least one of my counterparts said to me, 'Well, don't worry about it. You should see what we say about you,'" she joked. "So I think that this is well understood in the diplomatic community as part of the give-and-take."

In response to Clinton's statement, Wikileaks urged supporters via Twitter to take their own "aggressive steps" and donate to the site.

In a video message (below) posted Monday morning, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs echoed Clinton's statements.

"The leak is very disconcerting. These are highly classified cables, and [the leaks put] at risk our ability to do our foreign policy that promotes our security and protects those who have honest discussions with other governments," Gibbs said. "President Obama, as you know from the campaign, is a huge proponent of open and transparent government. We seek every day to ensure that nothing is over-classified in this investigation. But clearly the revelation of 250,000 documents that are highly classified is dangerous and is a threat to our ability to conduct foreign policy."

Secretary Clinton did not address a letter from Rep. Peter King, in which the New York Republican asked Clinton to consider designating Wikileaks as a terrorist organization. In other Wikileaks news, the New York Times said the leaked documents confirm that the Chinese government helped orchestrate an attack on Google earlier this year. PCMag's Neil Rubenking also spoke with Security expert Mikko Hypponen about who might have executed a denial of service attack against Wikileaks on Sunday.