High speed communication networks facilitate the simple and rapid mode of online information sharing with high data rates. But the channels which are used for data sharing are not secure. The subject of data security emerges in such scenarios. To achieve this, different security methods are being used in digital communication. Cryptography is one of the popular techniques, but the scrambled appearance of encrypted information can lead to high probability of attacks. Hiding information in a cover is one of the alternatives to cryptography. The main objective of this study is to provide an overall idea about the popular as well as emerging data hiding techniques in spatial and transform domains. This study deals with both reversible and non-reversible data hiding methods. Also, this study briefly discusses some common steganalytic techniques and concludes with an idea of the future scope of Reversible Data Hiding (RDH). The wide range of these techniques will provide a good overview about current trends in transform domain steganography to the researchers who are interested in steganography. © 2017 Ahmad Shaik et al.