Would it be OK if I up the ante a bit? The tags are really not so well structured. They are things like HOSTNAME, CONTACT, ....

Sure:

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Data::Dump qw[ pp ]; $Data::Dump::WIDTH = 50;

my $reTags = join '|', map quotemeta, qw[
    HOSTNAME CONTACT TAG1 TAG2 TAG3 TAG4
];

$reTags = qr[$reTags];

my %hash = do{
    local $/;
    <DATA>
} =~ m[($reTags)=\s+(.+?)(?=$reTags|\Z)]gsm;

pp \%hash;

__DATA__
TAG1= data
TAG2= more data
HOSTNAME= fred
TAG3= even more data that sometimes has = and
runs on to more
than one line
CONTACT= Wiley Coyote
Hiesenberg Road
The Desert
TAG4= still more
[download]

Produces:

c:\test>junk15
{
  CONTACT  => "Wiley Coyote\nHiesenberg Road\nThe Desert\n",
  HOSTNAME => "fred\n",
  TAG1     => "data\n",
  TAG2     => "more data\n",
  TAG3     => "even more data that sometimes has = and\nruns on to mor
+e\nthan one line\n",
  TAG4     => "still more",
}
[download]