Appears to be a new virus/worm.

Contaminates .exe files.
Causes system to overheat and shut down.
May be using IE as a transport.
Has something to do with DCOM, for if you turn DCOM off, it stops the worm/virus from acting.
Reformat seems to be the strategy, for now, from those who have gotten it.

Anti-virus companies don't appear to be up to date with it.

All of the info I have has been anecdotal, so research it on your own. That is to say, don't blame me for leaving info out.

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.polip.html

At least reformatting isn't the only recourse.

Nope.

And no longer anecdotal.

Got new DAT from Norton. I have it all over my laptop.

I got a clean Ghost, so no harm no foul.