use warnings;
use strict;
;
use XML::Simple qw(:strict);
use Data::Dumper;

my $xml =q(<?xml version="1.0"?>
 <response>
  <files>
   <file file_url="http://server.domain/file1.exe">
    file1.exe
   </file>
   <file file_url="http://server.domain/file2.zip">
    file2.zip
   </file>	
  </files>
 </response>
);

my $ref = XMLin($xml, forcearray => [ qw(files) ], keyattr => [] );

print Dumper($ref);